






" ""-^^.^^ '* 



















C, iT 










^s^ **^-* .*^' 











£,^*^V o 














iP-n^ 








/.C^^^'^^o 



,^^\cO-..^<t 










AFTER THE WAR 



AFTER THE WAR 

London - Paris - Rome - Athens - Prague 
Vienna - Budapest - Bucharest - Berlin 
Sofia-Coblenz- New York -Washington 

A Diary 

BY 

Lt.-Col. CHARLES A COURT REPINGTON 

C.M.G. 

COMMANDER OF THE OBDER OP LEOPOLD, OFFICER OF THE LEGION 
OF HONOUR, AUTHOR OF " THE FIRST WORLD WAR," ETC. 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(Stie Aitieriltbe pce^^ CambciDse 

1922 



<> 






^6 



COPYRIGHT, 15)32, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPAKY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



S.o o 



VSAnt SlCbertfibe IgntA* 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 



MAR -6 1922 
0)CIA654834 



PREFACE 

When the Peace Treaties, with one exception, were rati- 
fied and in full operation, I felt the need of a wander-year 
in order to acquaint myself with the new personalities and 
new ideas which the great war-storm had thrown up to the 
surface of affairs in continental Europe. It was useless to 
content oneself with archaic notions when all was changed, 
if one wished to keep abreast with the times, and there was 
no better way to discover what was happening than to go 
and see for oneself. 

A mission suggested to me by Viscount Burnham en- 
abled me to carry out my wish under favourable condi- 
tions. To him, and to many other good friends at home 
and abroad, my thanks are due for their confidence, their 
hospitality, and their assistance. Later in the year the 
opportunity was presented of attending the Washington 
Conference for the Limitation of Armaments. I offer this 
diary as a small contribution to the knowledge of people 
and events in the world of to-day in the hope that it may 
aid my readers to judge for themselves the proper direction 
of foreign policy in the future. 



CONTENTS 
CHAPTER I 

PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

Sir George Buchanan — Colonel Detroyat — M. Maurice Pernot 
on Italian politics — Italy's financial position — A conversa- 
tion with General Badoglio — His views on the Greeks — 
Talks with MM. Breski and Gayda at the Messagero office — 
A visit to M. Bergomini of the Giomale d'ltalia — Views of 
Dr. Malagodi, editor of the Trihuna — The Hellenic problem 

— Italian policy — A conversation with M. Barrere on Italian 
and Greek affairs — A visit to Count Sf orza at the Consulta — 
The aims of Italian policy — Emigration and commerce — A 
story from the Bosphorus — Italian journals — The Italian 
Embassy in London — Sir George Buchanan on his warning 
to the Tsar — Leave Rome for Athens 

CHAPTER n 
THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

Athens — A talk with Lord Granville — Princess Christopher's 
views — A ceremony at the Piraeus — Blessing the waters — 
Enthusiasm for the King — At Prince Nicholas's Palace — 
The Patriarch arrives — Greek wines — The Turkish policy 

— Colonel Rangabe — M. Guy Beringer on Greek dis- 
cipline — Colonel Mayes on physical training in Greece 

— An audience with the King — His views on current 
events — Prince and Princess Andrew — A talk with the 
Greek Chief-of-Staff on the campaign in Asia Minor — M. 
Gounaris on current events and politics — Back to Herodotus 

— M. Calogheropoulos on the financial position — A conver- 
sation with the Prime Minister, M. Rhallys — Colonel Nairne 

— A visit to the Bay of Salamis — "Ilthi" — H.M. the Queen 
Mother — A talk with M. Stratos — Venizelist journalists at 
sea — Tyranny of Venizelist agents — M. Maximos on Greek 
finance — Admiral Kelly — Visitors — The Archimandrite 
of Rhodes — A luncheon with the King and Queen — The 
Crown Prince of Roumania — A visit to Tatoi — Colonel Pal- 



viii CONTENTS 

lis on the operations — Strengths and chances of Greeks and 
Turks — Mr. Rawlings on commerce — General Dousmanis — 
General Gramat on the Greek Army — Election and Plebi- 
scite figures — A conversation with the Italian Minister, M. 
Montagna — Views of M. de Billy, the French Minister — A 
farewell audience with the King — A final dinner with M. 
Gounaris at Phaleron — Corfu — The Governor's Palace and 
MonRepos 19 



CHAPTER III 
ROME AND PARIS 

Consul-General Eyres — The British Embassy — The Fascisti and 
the hotel strike — An official dinner — Some Roman beauties 

— Another talk with M. Barrere — Princess Jane di San 
Faustino — Princess Radziwill — Another conversation with 
Count Sforza — His success at Paris — His views on Greeks 
and Turks — The London Conference — The Italians and the 
Czechs in agreement — Sir George Buchanan on Russia — M. 
Benes makes a favourable impression at Rome — Good influ- 
ence of Count Sforza — Miss Buchanan's "City of Trouble" 

— Leave for Paris — Thoughts on Italy — A conversation 
with Marshal Petain — A talk over Asia Minor — Strong po- 
sition of the French Army in Europe — A conversation with 
M. Venizelos — His strenuous work for Greece in London — 
He will never work with the King — Herodotus and the 
Greeks — Visit to Prince and Princess George of Greece at St. 
Cloud — Hopes in the French — Views on events — Visit to 
M. Philippe Berthelot — Reparations and Greece — A fair 
deal between France and England — Bismarck on the value of 
a man — A talk with M. Briand — He wishes to withdraw the 
French troops from Cilicia — The lies about Greece — M. 
Briand has reached the limit of concessions to Germany — 
The French Chambers a difficult team to handle — Bonaparte 
and Briand — Lady Millicent Hawes — Return to London . . 54 

CHAPTER IV 
CONFERENCES, SANCTIONS, AND PLEBISCITES 

The London Conference of February 21 — The Eastern Question 
and Reparations — Leave for Paris — The French position — 
DUsseldorf occupied — Marshal Petain's views — M. Her- 
bette's opinions — The Abb6 Sieyes on Germans and victory 



CONTENTS IX 

— General Buat and Lord Hardinge prefer a blockade to sanc- 
tions — M. Barthou on events — A conversation with M. An- 
dre Lefevre — The Ruhr plus blockade — Economic sanc- 
tions — A lunch with Marshal Petain — Some shooting sto- 
ries — I go to Cologne — General Masterman on aircraft con- 
trol in Germany — General Nollet on the military position in 
Germany — War material not delivered up — Mr. Julian Pig- 
gott on the economic sanctions — A visit to Dusseldorf , Ruhr- 
ort, and Duisburg — General Gaucher — Berlin — Views of 
our Embassy — Breslau — "The Victors" — Journey to Op- 
peln, Upper Silesia — General Le Rond — M. F. Bourdillon 

— Views of various Allied authorities — Motor tours round the 
Plebiscite area — Major Robin Gray — Colonel Wauchope's 
brigade — The industrial triangle — Voting day, March 20 — 
M. Korfanty — Germans win at Oppeln — Enthusiasm — 
Rough returns of the voting — Facts and figures about the min- 
ing area — Major R. W. Clarke, R.E. — Motor to Breslau — 
Prince and Princess Bliicher — Their views on Germany — 
Major Piper on his control work — The English and the 
French mentality — I am robbed at Breslau — Journey to 
Prague — The Germans to-day 69 

CHAPTER V 
A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

Prague — Palaces — Slovakia seeks autonomy — Two English- 
( men on the Czechs — A conversation with Dr. Benes — He ex- 
plains his policy — Ententism and free trade — The German 
danger — Sir George Clerk — Czechs, Austrians, and Italians 

— Population, area, and industries of Czecho-Slovakia — The 
political position — Dr. Krammarsch — The British Legation 

— King Karl enters Hungary — The Czech Constitution — 
Agrarian reform — Abolition of nobility, orders, and titles — 
Commandeering of private houses — The Czecho-Slovak 
Army — Resources of the State — The German fringe — 
What the Czechs want from us — General Husak, the War 
Minister — The King Karl adventure — The Czechs ready to 
move — Beauty of Prague — Conversation with the Prime 
Minister, M. Cemy — Another conversation with Dr. Benes — 
He thinks Germany can pay — His system of alliances — No 
formula for his confederation of Central Europe — A ten 
years' programme — Leave Prague for Vienna 108 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

INFELIX AUSTRIA 

Vienna — Sir Thomas Cunninghame — The Vienna Emergency Re- 
lief Fund — Coimt Albert Mensdorfif on the future of Austria 

— The condition of Vienna — Untrue charges against Mens- 
dorff — Mensdorfif on King Karl — Baron Pitner on Austrian 
State finance — On King Karl — The Anschluss — Methods 
of saving Austria — Hatred of Bolshevism — Independence of 
the Provinces — The Hofburg and the Ballhaus Platz — State 
employes — Dr. SchuUer — Poverty of oflBcials — Austria's 
loss of population and territory — The new political system — 
Parties and leaders — The greatness of Vieima — Commercial 
prospects — Police President Schober — Dr. Friedrich Hertz 

— The allotment reform — Austria's deficit due to food subsi- 
dies — A memorandum on Austrian foreign policy — Econom- 
ics govern policy — A conversation with President Dr. Hein- 
isch — Agricultural questions — A talk with Chancellor Dr. 
Mayr, Foreign Minister — The Anschluss question — No feel- 
ing for the Habsburgs in Austria now — Dr. Schiiller on food 
and debt — Schonbrunn — Another talk with Baron Pitner 

— The Central Government and the Provinces — Austrian 
Foreign Ministers — Berchtold — The Society of Friends — 
A circle of the old regime — Sir William Goode — His propos- 
als and their rejection — Leave for Budapest 132 

CHAPTER VII 
THE SORROWS OF HXTNGARY 

Budapest — The British High Commission — Lord Bertie's corre- 
spondence — Major-General Gorton — A new Hungarian 
Government — Hungary's losses — A waiting policy — The 
Archduke Joseph — "The Royal Hungarian Government" — 
Accusations against Roumania — Situation of the Danube 
Navigation Company — The Mannheim-Regensburg Ca- 
nal — The Danube Commission — Agricultural statistics ^ 
Two good diplomatic stories — Count Bethlen announces his 
policy in Parliament — Count Julius Andrassy — M. Czabo 

— Prince Windischgratz — M. de Barczy — The scene in Par- " 
liament — Hungary and the Roumanians — A conversation 
with Count BanfiFy, Foreign Minister — His definition of the 
Government — The crown of St. Stephen — A Protectorate 

— Cromwell and Horthy — Tales of the refugees — A conver- 



CONTENTS xi 

sation with Count Albert Apponyi — The outlook of people 
changed — Apponyi at the Peace Conference — Confidence 
in English justice — M. Hegediis, Finance Minister, expounds 
to me his great programme — Colonel Alfred Stead — A tour 
round Lake Balaton — The country and the crops — Vienna 

— A party at Sir William Goode's hotel — Foreigners and 
night life at Vienna — Police President Schober's opinion — 
Mr. Walker D. Hines — Return to Paris 154 

CHAPTER VIII 
PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

The conversations at Lympne — Upper Silesia, the sanctions, and 
the Ruhr — Views of Lord Hardinge and Mr. Arnold Robert- 
son — Sir Milne Cheetham on French vigour — Colonel Bald- 
win on Danube affairs — Mr. Robertson on Rhine customs and 
the proposed occupation of the Ruhr — His alternative proposal 

— Marshal Retain in readiness — He invites me to accompany 
him — His views on subject races — The census of Paris — 
Germany's liabilities fixed at 132 milliards of gold marks — 
Sir Basil Zaharoff — Boucher pictures — The business hon- 
esty of different nationalities — A story of the Chinese — Za- 
haroff's gold plate — Comfort and civilisation — The Dutch 
Loan Exhibition — A conversation with M. Clemenceau — ' 
An unchanged host and house — He will write nothing about 
the past — He is opposed to the occupation of the Ruhr — 
France financially exhausted — Views on Marshals Foch and 
Retain — Clemenceau's love of Burma — Clemenceau's life — 
His wound — His reply to the Sister of Charity — A good 
story of Clemenceau — Prince Ghika and Count Zamoyski — 
Preparations for a move into Germany — The situation — A 
motor trip to Princess Murat's house — The 1919 Class called 
out, but the Essen coup put off — Painful moments at the 
London Conference — A brief visit to England 176 

CHAPTER IX 
WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

The Allied ultimatum of May 5th — I return to Paris — The revolt 
of the Poles in Upper Silesia — Arrive at Mayence — The 
Saar — General Michel — French plan of concentration — 
The 1919 Class — The New German Government — General 
Degoutte — A long conversation — Wealth of the Ruhr — 
Berlin and the Rhineland — "Black" troops — The railways 



xii CONTENTS 

in German hands — The Kaiserin's funeral — Mr. Lloyd 
George on Upper Silesia — The hidden formations of the 
German Army — German informers — Wiesbaden — Fm-y 
aroused in France by Mr. Lloyd George's speech — Wiesbaden 
races — Another talk with General Degoutte — His hatred of 
war — General oflScers in France — Our incomprehensible 
Prime Minister — Dangers from future Napoleons of com- 
merce — General Claudon on the Rhinelanders — A good rep- 
artee — Commandant Philippi on our new customs duties — 
A lucky bargee — The Mayence Cathedral — The Gutenberg 
Statue — Our new douane at work — A visit to Coblenz — 
Mr. Arnold Robertson — A conversation with his staflf — 
Captain Troughton — Captain Georgi — Their views on the 
customs and the Ruhr — Ruhr statistics — Our battalions 
ordered to Silesia — Lunch with M. Tirard — A talk with M. 
Rolin Jaequemyns — General Allen's opinions — Return to 
Mayence — M. Briand's great speech — A German bank di- 
rector on the economical situation — Levies, taxes, and wages 

— A review — Visit to Frankfort — The Stadel Gallery — 
The Lenbachs — Consul-General Gosling — Goethe's house 

— A talk with the editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung — A final 
conversation with General Degoutte — Conclusions from 
three weeks on the Rhine! 197 



CHAPTER X 

BERLIN AND VIENNA 

Arrive at Berlin — A talk with Lord D'Abernon — The Kaiser 
Friedrich Museum — Our German policy — A conversation 
with Professor Hans Delbrtick — Emblems of imperialism — 
Mr. Finlayson on German State finance — Germany must 
double her revenue to pay reparations — The Chancellor, Dr. 
Wirth, at the Embassy — General von Seekt, War Minister — 
Their views on events — The Rodensteiners no more — How 
the Bolshevists plotted to invade Germany — A conversation 
with Chancellor Wirth at his office — Views on finance — Ger- 
many can pay — He wants us to help him — Militarist dan- 
gers — The Universities — He shows me Bismarck's rooms — 
An interesting figure — Lunch with General NoUet — We dis- 
cuss the work of his Commission — M. Haguenin and his 
colleagues of the Reparations Delegation — A British view 
of disarmament — Colonel Thelwall's views — Uninspiring 
Berlin — The Embassy interior — A perfect hostess — 
American Embassy views on Germany — A con versa- 



CONTENTS xiii 

tion with Dr. Rosen, Foreign Minister — Return to Paris 
— An exchange of ideas with Lord Hardinge — Return to 
London — Off to Roumania — Munich — Some Bavarian 
opinions — Vienna — A provincial procession — Austria's 
mountaineers — A talk with Chancellor Schober — His first 
acts — Dr. Hertz's views — Austria a colony — How Austria 
obtained her best information during the war — The situation 
in Austria — Only a third of expenditure met by revenue — 
The League's financial plan — Vienna holds her own . . . 256 



CHAPTER XI 

NEW ROUMANIA 

Coimtry and crops — A first talk with M. Take Jonescu — Sum- 
mer nights in Bucharest — Mr. Millington Drake — Mr., 
Peter A. Jay and Colonel Poillon, U.S.A. — People to see — 
An audience with the King of Roumania — A talk on current 
affairs — The question of Transylvania — MM. Jacovaky 
and Grigori Jon — Complaints of Bulgaria — Bucharest ar- 
chitecture — The butterflies — Roumanian statistics — M. 
Filaleki on Russia — The opposition on strike — Views of M. 
Nedkov, the Bulgarian Minister — Answers to Roumanian 
charges — A conversation with the Prime Minister, General 
Avarescu — His account of 1916 — His views on the Straits — 
A talk with M. Goga — Religions in Transylvania — Rouma- 
nian resources — Wheat, maize, and timber — Foreign capital 

— Industrial concerns — Railways — Foreign trade — Banks 

— Public finance — Public debt — A talk with General Niko- 
leanu on the police — Mme. Lahovary on the agrarian reforms 

— A talk with the Minister of Communications — A talk with 
the General Staff — General Gorski and Colonel Palada — 
The strength and distribution of the Soviet armies — More 
complaints of Bulgaria — A conversation with the War Min- 
ister, General Rascano — Roumanian Army organisation — 
M. Garoflid, Minister of Domains, on the agrarian laws — 
Colonel Dundas — Consul Keyser — Mr. Guest on the oil 
industry — A dinner at the Take Jonescus — The Foreign 
Minister on Roumanian policy — Mr. Alexander Adams — 
The Decree Laws — An investigation at the Roumanian For- 
eign Office — The complaints about Bulgaria — The oil in- 
dustry — Statistics and observations — Trammels of the in- 
dustry — The export tax — Astra-Romana and Steaua- 
Romana — Mr. Charles Spencer on the future of our trade — 

By motor to the Danube 296 



XIV CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XII 

BULGARIA 

Rustchuk — Across Bulgaria — Crops and herds — Plevna — A 
visit to the Premier, M. Stamboulisky — An interesting char- 
acter — His account of the Council of September 15, 1915 — I 
recount the charges against Bulgaria — Stamboulisky's an- 
swers — Views on Russia — Relations with Kemalists and the 
Soviet — Stamboulisky and death — The King arrives — 
Stamboulisky on reparations — Sour milk and caviare — Cap- 
tain Collins — Attraction of Sofia — The Board of Works and 
our Legations — Talks with Little Entente representatives — 
The Labour Conscription Law — Sir Arthur Peel — Colonel 
Baird on the Bulgarian Army — On our propaganda — An 
audience with King Boris — An attractive character — His 
views on the charges against Bulgaria — On a volunteer army 
— No relations with ex-Tsar Ferdinand — He considers an 
attack on his neighbours insanity — The stamp episode — 
The Museum — A conversation with General de Fourtou — 
Efifectives and armaments of Bulgaria — Some secret reports 
challenged — His plan for completing the Army — Why our 
secrets get out — Another talk with the Little Entente — 
Need to test the authenticity of the challenged reports — A 
talk with M. Dmitroff, the War Minister — Bulgaria's past 
treachery — Her ferocity in war — Drs. Gueshoff and Majar- 
off at the British Legation — Defects of the Agrarian Party — 
Treaty -making power — Sanctions against Bulgaria — M. 
Petco Stainov's opinions — Grozkoff's mission — A visit to 
Vranja — A conversation with the Serbian Minister, M. Rad- 
itch — His opinion of Stamboulisky — The Government a 
tyranny — The Consortium — Sir Charles Stewart Wilson on 
reparations — Return to Bucharest — Two Clemenceau sto- 
ries — M. Kissimoff gives reasons for considering the secret 
reports forgeries — His summary of the Bulgarian policy — 
Leave for Paris — Robbed by bandits in Transylvania — Com- 
pare experiences with Lord Hardinge — How he calmed an 
Anglo-French dispute — Sledge-hammer politics — Arrival of 
Mr. Lloyd George in Paris for the conference — Return to 
London 353 



CONTENTS XV 

CHAPTER Xin 

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

Crossing the Atlantic — Fellow-travellers — Mr. H. G. Wells and 
M. Chaliapine — Thoughts on the Far East — A concert — 
New York — The American press — Photographers and inter- 
viewers — Japanese statements — Gold and exchanges — 
Washington — Sir Auckland Geddes — Personalities — The 
Metropolitan Club — Major-General Harbord — Mr. Frank 
Simonds — Secretary of State Hughes — Maurice Low — Phi- 
lippe Millet and Pertinax — A galaxy of journalists — Mr. El- 
liot Goodwin — The Chamber of Commerce of the United 
States — Parties — Foreign journalists — Mount Vernon — 
Arlington — General Pershing — General Buat — An Embassy 
dinner — Major-General Squier — IVIr. Bryan — Armistice 
Day — Ceremony at Arlington — The opening session of No- 
vember 12 — American proposals for limitation of naval arma- 
ments — An audacious scheme — General astonishment — 
The Hughes Memorandum — Public acquiescence — Lord 
Riddell and Sir Arthur Willert — Public discussion of the pro- 
posal — Mr. Balfour, Admiral Baron Kato, and Signor Schan- 
zer — Mr. Hughes's speech — Mr. Balfour under press fire — 
China — Admiral Kato's views — Commander Brown — Mr. 
Stanley Washburn — Mrs. Marshall Field — Admiral Lord 
Beatty — Land armaments discussed — M. Briand, IVL". Bal- 
four, and Mr. Hughes speak — French naval claims — An 
Embassy reception — A French cable to London — Trouble in 
Italy follows — Senator Root — The President forecasts fu- 
ture conferences — Mrs. West and Mr. and Mrs. Miller — 
More parties and receptions — Jonkheer Van Karnebeek — 
The Japanese block the way — A Presidential tea-party — 
The Big Three meeting on December 2 — An Italian dinner- 
party — First impressions of America 396 



AFTER THE WAR 



CHAPTER I 

PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 
JANUARY 1921 

Sir George Buchanan — Colonel Detroyat — M. Maurice Pemot on Italian 
politics — Italy's financial position — A conversation with General Bado- 
glio — His views on the Greeks — Talks with MM. Breski and Gayda at the 
Messagero office — A visit to M. Bergomini of the Giornale d' Italia — Views 
of Dr. Malagodi, editor of the Tribuna — The Hellenic problem — Italian 
policy — A conversation with M. Barrere on Italian and Greek affairs — A 
visit to Count Sforza at the Consulta — The aims of Italian policy — Emi- 
gration and commerce — A story from the Bosphorus — Italian journals — 
The Italian Embassy in London — Sir George Buchanan on his warning to 
the Tsar — Leave Rome for Athens. 

Saturday, January 8, 1921. Left Victoria 8.10 a.m. A 
calm crossing and a fine sunny day. Met Ian Malcolm on 
board on his way to Egypt. We lunched at the famous 
Gare Maritime Restaurant so long closed to us during the 
war, and by dint of gossiping nearly missed the train. 
Drove across Paris to the Gare de Lyon in the new taxi- 
transport which might take on in London for station work. 
Dined at the Palace Hotel in the Rue de Lyon near the 
station and went on 9.30. No one in the sleeper whom I 
knew except Prince Louis. ^ Reached Modane Sunday 
10.30 A.M., and Rome about 1 p.m. 

Monday, January 10, 1921. Not a very comfortable 
journey and a poor restaurant. After an enjoyable tub 
and breakfast at the Grand Hotel went to the Embassy 
and saw Sir George Buchanan, the pink of perfection 
among Ambassadors. He does not think that Italy has 
any annexionist ideas in the Eastern Mediterranean, but 
he says that Italians dislike the Greeks and were pleased 
when Venizelos was overthrown. It was owing to Italy 

* The Marquess of Milford Haven. 



2 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

that the Allied Ministers were not withdrawn from Athens. 
He is more anxious about the financial situation in Italy 
than the political, and does not know how she will get 
through the next two or three years, though M. Meda, the 
Finance Minister, is very optimistic. He is going to see 
Count Sforza, the Foreign Minister, to-night to make 
sure whether Italy has or has not ratified the Treaty of 
Sevres. I doubt whether he is kept well-informed of 
events by the F.O. He knew nothing of the Tripartite 
Treaty of Guarantees for long after it was signed, and 
though he believes that Giolitti met Lloyd George at 
Lausanne, he has no knowledge of what was settled there. 
He thinks that the position of an Ambassador is no longer 
what it was, even when he was in Russia. This is a general 
complaint on the part of all diplomacy, British and foreign. 
The Supreme Council still usurps all serious diplomatic 
functions, but on the other hand it hacks its way through 
somehow. 

Went on to see Lieutenant-Colonel Detroyat, the 
Military Attache at the French Embassy. He says that 
Italy still has three classes and some 400,000 men under 
arms, but that nominally there is only eight months' 
service. Everything seems to be provisional and tempo- 
rary. He thinks that Italy has no desire to initiate any 
military operation and has no troops in Asia Minor. 
Went on to find Maurice Pernot, correspondent of the 
Journal des Debats. He is off to Paris to-morrow, but I 
may find him again if I return through Rome. He is very 
critical of Italian desagrSgation both in agrarian and indus- 
trial troubles of recent occurrence, and declares that for a 
time authority lapsed in the north and did not exist in the 
south. He thinks that the King prevented Giolitti from 
acting in the northern troubles, from a generous feeling 
that if the dynasty had to go, it should go without blood- 
shed. Neither the bourgeois nor the proletariat party are 
organized, so they are nicely balanced. He fancies that 
Italy is unable to act externally and so withdraws into 
"her island." She has abandoned not only Albania, but 



ITALY'S FINANCIAL POSITION 3 

even Vallona. But he thinks she is working through com- 
mercial banks and by other means to draw closer to Jugo- 
slavia and Bulgaria, and hopes to dominate the Little 
Entente and to prevent a Habsburg restoration. He is 
pretty sure, as was our Ambassador, that there were 
secret clauses in the Rapallo Treaty directed against a 
Habsburg Hungary. 

During my journey these last two days all the talk was 
about want of work, unemployment, and the hardships of 
the foreign exchanges. Italy's financial position is bad. 
The 1919-20 account showed a deficit of 13§ milliards of 
lire. The estimates for 1921-22 fix expenditure at 24 
milliards and receipts at 14f milliards. In future she will 
need 18 milliards to meet her expenses and will have 
12 milliards of revenue only. Only a reorganization of 
taxes can fill the void. The public debt, which was 13| 
milliards, is now close on 100, of which 20 milliards are 
payable in gold to England and the United States. At the 
present rate of exchange these 20 milliards equal 82 
milliards in Italian lire. Of the 85 milliards of the war 
debt, 35 have come since the Armistice. A large amount 
due to the bread subsidy, not with much effect, as the 
bread here is brown, sour, and beastly. Notes in circula- 
tion, 3 milliards before the war, are now 22, and were 
never over 9 during hostilities. The real complaint, here 
and in France, is that there are no clients, no buyers, and 
some vow that the fault was not in stabilising the exchanges 
at the time of the Peace Conference. No one, however, 
suggests how this could have been done. However much 
it may please English travellers and diplomats to receive 
60 francs and 104 lire for their pound sterling, it is fatal to 
trade, and just as much to our trade as to that of France 
and Italy. Indeed, I begin to wonder whether the victors 
are not the greatest sufferers. 

The Ambassador spoke most feelingly to-day about the 
late Tsar, but says that he, Buchanan, gave the serious 
warning to the Tsar which Balfour told me had been 
given by Milner. Hanbury-Williams had already given 



4 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

me the same warning. Buchanan had asked twice to be 
allowed to give the warning, and had been refused per- 
mission the first time. He gave it later on his personal 
responsibility, but says that autocracy requires a strong 
man like Peter the Great, and that the late Tsar, though 
most charming and kind, had not the character for his role. 
Tuesday, January 11, 1921. Went off early to see 
General Badoglio, Chief of the General Staff. Found him 
in the G.S. building opposite the War Ministry. He was 
very agreeable and we discussed affairs since we last met 
just before the battle of Vittorio-Veneto. He explains the 
eight months' service in the Army, and the existence of a 
large peace strength concurrently, by saying that people 
have misunderstood the position. The eight months' 
service will only be the consequence of a long series of 
preparatory training of youth in drill, physical exercises, 
and schooling, and cannot be the prelude to this, as 
people imagine. He has still two classes under arms and a 
third now demobilising. He says that Italy has no designs in 
the Eastern Mediterranean and has only two small de- 
tachments, five hundred men each, on the coast of Asia 
Minor and five hundred at Rhodes. He says that even if 
Smyrna fell to Italy, he would only place a civilian consul 
there. He wants to revise the Treaty of Sevres and to 
replace Smyrna under the Turks. He doubts that Greece 
can keep in the field her present twelve divisions under 
arms. He brought out the map that Venizelos had given 
him showing the present northern frontier of Greater 
Greece, and asked how they could defend it against 
Albanians, Serbs, Bulgars, and Turks with no strategic 
railways to permit of rapid strategic movements. Even in 
Asia Minor he thought that the Turks would merely draw 
the Greeks on, and that theirs was not a sound position. 
Greece was a little nation and had not the force or wealth 
behind her to justify the soaring policy of Venizelos. He 
was critical of the absence of all serious military organiza- 
tion in England and seemed to know our position quite 
well. He says that when the Supreme Council decided to 



TALKS WITH BRESKI AND GAYDA 5 

occupy Batoum, Foch and he, on being consulted, advo- 
cated three divisions as a beginning. Then the Supreme 
ones asked who was to send them. BadogHo would not 
send one. Foch made the same reply, and so did the 
British. So the scheme fell flat. A good talk, and it is 
quite clear that the Italians have not the slightest inten- 
tion of undertaking any adventures at present. 

I went on to the Messagero office to talk, as advised by 
the Italian Embassy in London, to the Director, M. 
Breski, and also met his brilliant young leader-writer, 
M. Gayda, who did most of the talking. They told me 
that there were neither the men nor the means for ambi- 
tious Imperialism, but that Italy aimed at directing her 
future emigration to all parts of the Eastern Mediterra- 
nean which could support a largely increased white popu- 
lation, and that the plan was to make it a peaceful pene- 
tration with the further object of obtaining concessions 
and raw materials in Asia Minor by agreement with the 
Turks. They said that Count Sforza was well versed in 
Eastern affairs and knew Kemal with whom he had been 
in touch recently by intermediaries; but they denied the 
despatch of ships with arms to Kemal. The Turks un- 
derstood the Italian point of view and left the Italians 
alone. They do not like the extension of Modern Greece 
and wish Smyrna to revert to Turkey. They agree that 
France wants to set up the Turks as a barrier against 
Bolshevism, but find a contradiction between this view and 
France's support of Venizelos's Greater Greece. They 
think that politically England and Italy see with the same 
eyes, but that economically Italy has grievances, and even 
politically there is a bad feeling because L. G. promised 
Smyrna to Italy at St. Jean de Maurrienne and then got 
out of the promise when Orlando was absent from Paris 
during the Peace Conference, on the pretext that Russia's 
consent had been a condition, and that Russia no longer 
counted. 

But the real grievance is the state of the exchange and 
the want of raw materials. It is indispensable — though 



6 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

it is easier said than done — to stabilise the exchange 
which, they say, is ruining Italy, and more raw materials 
must be made available to satisfy the claims of Italian 
factories which have quadrupled since 1914. Agriculture 
wants chemical manures, and though France has plenty in 
North Africa she will not let Italy work part of them, 
though France is short of the labour to do so. A long 
talk round all these subjects and they promise me a memo- 
randum upon it in a day or two. The Messagero is inde- 
pendent and under no one's orders. So they say. It is 
probably true, for Italian journalism stands high. I have 
a great respect for most of the great papers and the men in 
charge of them. 

Went on to renew my acquaintance with M. Bergomini, 
editor of the Giornale cf Italia, who was very cordial. He 
says that the Italians won their share of the war, but lost 
the peace. The result was that those who had opposed the 
war came into power. Italy had won her land frontier, but 
not her sea frontier on the eastern shore of the Adriatic 
down to Sebenico, and had therefore not accomplished her 
strategic purjwse. If all the fleets of the Allies could not 
defeat the Austrian Navy during the war, it was possible 
that Italy might be in the same position some day against 
another Power occupying Austria's place. I knew, he said, 
that the east coast of Italy was very indefensible owing 
to want of ports. 

From all this situation and from the cost and losses of 
the war had arisen a serious moral depression which came 
to a head in the recent industrial troubles in the north and 
the agrarian troubles in the south and in Sicily. B. is not 
disposed to attach much importance to the agrarian 
troubles. He says that the south and Sicily are monar- 
chical and constitutional, and that even when the people 
set out to occupy landed properties, they often had a priest 
at their head and cheered the King and Queen whose 
portraits they carried. But the industrial troubles were 
more serious, and B. admits that for a time he anticipated 
the worst. Things had blown over. The workmen had 



A VISIT TO M. BERGOMINI 7 

found that they could not work the factories and sell the 
products, so gradually a settlement came about, and the 
bourgeois classes also made better preparations to defend 
themselves. If, as he hoped, things were quiet till the 
spring when agriculture began to demand labour again, 
he would consider a bad corner turned. But the question 
of the exchange he placed first. The problem for Italy 
was first to live, and then to live in peace. He could not 
tell me of any solution that had been proposed to improve 
the exchange. Exchanges and the cost of living were the 
two greatest problems for Europe. He hoped that the 
Leghorn Conference of the Socialists would result in 
the split between the Moderates and the Extremists of 
a party, ^ and then the Conservatives could talk. He 
attributed great importance to the indictment of Bol- 
shevism, out to-day from the pen of the Socialist leader 
Turati in the form of a preface to a book by the Italian 
Socialists who had visited Russia. He thought that it 
would have great influence on Italian Socialism. 

Colonel Detroyat came to call in the afternoon and we 
had another talk on the war and the Italian position. 
Then I went off to see Dr. Malagodi, the editor of the 
Tribuna. He thought that Giolitti was doing well. He 
had bided his time at Fiume and had struck at the right 
moment, while Nitti had menaced and done nothing. 
Giolitti was every^thing in the Government and the rest 
were only his instruments. He thought that things were 
going well; was sure that Italy would have nothing to do 
with adventures of any sort, was very strong about the 
hardships of the exchange, and wondered why England 
with her two hundred and fifty million tons of coal a year 
could not find ten for her ally at the price that America 
provided it. He said that Italy only required this amount, 
while England wasted forty million tons on domestic uses, 
and Italy's ten millions would serve all her needs. The 
coal from England now cost one hundred lire more per ton 
than the Amierican. M. thought that Italy could never 

^ It did. 



8 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

pay her war debt to England and America. He referred to 
a loan from Florentine bankers which a King of England 
had never repaid. The prices here are awful. Things cost 
from three to six times the pre-war price, and exchange is 
declared to be at the bottom of it. 

As for the German problem, here are Gayda's views. 
He thinks that the upheaval of Central and Eastern 
Europe is the dominant event, political and social, of the 
Continent. Europe is in search of peace, but cannot find it. 
There is a want of unity of ideas and attitudes. The Paris 
meeting on January 19 must result in precise ideas on the 
crisis and alleviate by discussion the asperity of their 
contrast. In the gigantic conflict between victors and 
vanquished, it is natural that the latter should draw 
together and follow the lead of the strongest, namely, 
Germany. Many people obstinately include all in the 
narrow confines of the text of the Treaties, with its various 
formulas invented by four men sitting round a table who 
are able to conclude in some specific case, such as the 
military war, but cannot confront a general phenomenon 
which is the world-crisis since the war. Germany has not 
fulfilled her disarmament engagements entered into at 
Spa. But Gayda does not credit a new French adventure. 
He thinks that Frankfort was a lesson to the French, and 
that English opinion has not changed. England and Italy 
think that the German disarmament has largely been 
brought about and that minor defalcations do not justify 
more severities. The danger is that France desires to com- 
pensate for her withdrawal from her extreme position 
about reparation by greater inflexibility on the question 
of disarmament. He accuses M. Dard at Munich of play- 
ing up to Bavarian independence and supporting the 
Orgesch to this end, and of trying to create a Danubian 
Monarchy and to give autonomy to the Rhine Provinces. 

Clarity and prudence are needed, says Gayda, and elas- 
ticity of measure, and a compromise must be found, not 
forgetting that France refused to disarm at Geneva. It 
may mean a Government crisis in Paris, but will mean the 



THE HELLENIC PROBLEM 9 

peace of Europe. Italy's position is one of traditional 
moderation inspired by realistic consciousness of the com- 
plexities of the moment. He thinks that Sforza must 
already have pointed out that reports like General Nollet's 
represent real political acts which are not authorized with- 
out previous notice to friendly Governments and their 
consent. The present French practices may lead to the 
isolation of the French Government. In reparations, 
Italy marches with England. 

It is necessary to solve the German problem, then the 
Russian, and finally the general problem of European 
economics. Each day there is more and more felt the need 
of reverting truly to peace which is not only a definition 
of a text, but a political and social form of life, to over- 
come all the divisions caused by the war and to revive 
Central Europe. These simple laws suggest the limit and 
the form of the reparation to be demanded from Germany. 
It must leave to Germany the possibility of autonomous 
economic existence. In the solution of the German prob- 
lem we shall get the measure of the capacity of Govern- 
ment men to understand the problem of the world. There 
is a certain amount of fluff about all this, but one must 
grasp the mentality of Italian journalism and watch its 
tendencies. 

Wednesday, January 12, 1921. Dr. Malagodi says to- 
day in the Trihuna that the Hellenic problem, which in- 
cludes that of Turkey, depends for its solution upon events 
which will happen in Asia Minor. But the Allies must in 
any case sincerely seek a common basis for their policy in 
the East. England accepts King Constantine passively and 
the latter proposes to follow the Venizelist policy in Asia 
Minor, so England does not wish to revise the Sevres 
Treaty. France desires to revise it, but does not desire 
the King. Italy favours revision, but will not look at 
any attack on the King, as she accepts fully the popular 
mandate of the Greek electorate. These three policies dif- 
fer. The Allied problem is to harmonize these differences. In 
regard to Germany XhtTrihuna wishes to take count of the 



10 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

facts in Bavaria and East Prussia, not to insist too liter- 
ally on the Treaty, and not to make Germany too weak 
internally and against Bolshevism, nor create a moral 
depression which may harm her growing industries and so 
react on the question of reparations in which all the Allies 
are interested. As for the latter question Italy thinks that 
the sword of Damocles must not be constantly suspended 
over Germany's head and that the gross sum due from 
her must be stated. Italy does not take this line from 
Germanophilism as some of her Allies think. She is fully 
in favour of the continuing solidarity of the Alliance, but 
has a profound conviction that it is a real interest of 
France to render possible the payment of reparations, and 
thinks that to leave the figure of Germany's debt vague 
is to postpone the realization of the conditions which will 
permit Germany to satisfy her obligations. 

A correct reading of the Italian policy, I think, but all 
is not said, for Italy mainly looks east now, and not having 
had Germany as a real enemy, nor having the will or the 
means for future military efforts, has no intention of shar- 
ing in measures of constraint. She looks to a peaceful, 
diplomatic, commercial, and economic penetration of the 
Balkans and Asia Minor, and the diversion of her surplus 
population upon the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. 
This latter policy is big with events in future, but at pres- 
ent it will appear harmless. Anyhow, Italy will be a 
moderating influence in present troubles, and perhaps 
regards the general and economic situation with a broader 
outlook than some of the rest of us. 

Note that a smart clerk at Cook's OflSce told me to-day 
that there had been gigantic speculation in Italy on 
foreign exchange and that the Government had been com- 
pelled to limit these dealings to half an hour in the morn- 
ing and half an hour in the afternoon. He gave me 106 at 
the exchange to-day and thought that it might continue 
to fall for a couple of months and then gradually recover 
to 80 by the end of the year. 

In the afternoon went to see the French Ambassador, 



CONVERSATION WITH M. BARRERE 11 

M. Barrere, at the French Embassy at the Farnese Palace. 
Two hours of delightful conversation with him and then a 
look round the big rooms, of which I admired the music 
room with Caracci decorations, a central room with two 
wonderful Boucher tapestries of very large size and ex- 
quisite quality, two other Gobelins pieces and a delightful 
smaller room. Found that H.E. was a great connoisseur of 
art and music, and we should never have talked politics 
had we begun by looking over the palace. I should say 
that the rooms may well be, as he says, unsurpassed in 
Rome; but his own taste in doing them up, and the paint- 
ings and tapestries from the Garde Meubles at Paris have 
to be taken into account. 

M. Barrere's work in Italy for the past twenty-three 
years is certainly one of the greatest triumphs of French 
diplomacy. It was he who brought about an understand- 
ing between the two countries years ago, and but for him 
Italy might never have come into the war. We discussed 
past diplomacy of which our mutual experience enabled us 
to fit many pieces together; French politics and diplomacy; 
the Italian internal situation and external politics; the 
Vatican and its influence; Turkey and Greece; exchange, 
raw materials, and so forth, and in fact all the current 
political problems. He speaks English like a native. His 
father was French Professor at Woolwich and he was at 
school in the town. It is a loss to us that he did not follow 
Cambon in London. 

No one knows Italy better than Barrere. I found that 
he thought the internal situation still much more serious 
than other people, except our Ambassador, had in their 
talks with me. He described how the red and black flags 
were at one time hoisted on factories within forty miles of 
Rome, and how Soviets had been practically instituted. 
He had been evidently much impressed and could not yet 
regard the position through rose-coloured spectacles. He 
says that he does not find in France or England anti- 
Italian journals, but does find in Italy anti-French and 
anti-English journals. He mentioned the Tempo as an ex- 



12 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

ample. He thought that one newspaper which he named 
was run and financed in a certain commercial interest, and 
that the Corriere was the only great paper and serious jour- 
nal in Italy. Another paper was going down; he said that 
it had not now good information and articles by competent 
hands were rare. He agreed that the state of the exchange 
was a real danger and wondered that it had not been sooner 
taken up by the Powers, as all of our trade was being 
ruined by the disastrous changes from day to day. He did 
not seem to have heard of the rumours of coal and oil 
probabilities north of the Apennines. 

He was interested in my views of the Eastern character 
of Italy and of the Eastern trend of her policy, but 
thought that Italy had not the men nor the means to rule 
the Little Entente. He had old-fashioned ideas about the 
Vatican, and asked what France and England would do 
if they had an establishment like the Vatican, with its im- 
mense moral power, cheek by jowl with the civil govern- 
ment. I thought that we should not mind and should just 
use it. I thought the Vatican Italian and that it subserved 
Italian policy. He admitted that it had become much 
more Italian than during his early days here. I thought 
that the Vatican would be delighted with the idea of 
Italian emigration to the Eastern Mediterranean, as it 
would increase the scope of their missions on which they 
set such store. He allowed that this would be so. He did 
not deny that the French were playing with the idea of a 
Danubian Monarchy, and said it was true that there was a 
secret and written accord in the Rapallo Treaty pledging 
the contracting parties to resist a Habsburg restoration 
in Hungary. He agreed that it was essential for England 
and France to keep Italy in the Alliance and that we could 
not afford to let her look elsewhere for friends. 

He is in favour of a revision of the Turkish Treaty." I 
asked him if he saw any objection to the Greeks making 
friends with the Turks, and he said that he preferred 
that the Allies would do so. But it depends, supposing 
an arrangement, what the terms may be. He thought it 



CONVERSATION WITH M. BARRERE 13 

probable, if we did not settle with the Turks, that the 
Bolshevists might be at Constantinople this year. The 
Turkish Nationalists did not like the Bolshies, who were 
arrogant and domineering, while the mentality of the two 
races differed, and there was their age-long hostility to 
reckon with, but they were comrades in misfortune, and 
adversity made strange bed-fellows. We agreed that the 
vitality of the Italian race and their flourishing natality 
were undoubted sources of strength and expansion, and 
that Italian mechanics, engineers, and craftsmen showed 
wonderful results. But Barrere asked whether great popu- 
lations had ever meant great peoples, and said that the 
Fellaheen bred faster than the Italians and that it still 
meant nothing. It was the small nations who had been the 
wonder of the world. 

He deplored the abasement of diplomacy, as Buchanan 
had done, and he seems insufficiently informed by his F.O., 
as our people seem to be. He told me that General Pelle 
was coming here in a week's time, and that P. and I would 
meet at Constantinople. Another good story of Clemen- 
ceau, who broke out once during the Peace Conference and 
said that the Italians met him with a magnifique coup de 
chapeau of the seventeenth-century type, and then held 
out the hat for alms at the end of the bow. Many recollec- 
tions of France's errors in Egypt, of Fashoda, and of the 
opening of the Anglo-French military conversations. He 
wants French and English schools to exchange scholars 
for a year, for the ignorance of each other's language is a 
great misfortune. He finds that Englishmen can only really 
express themselves in their own language. Barrere is an in- 
timate friend of Foch's and there were several photos of 
the Marshal in his room. Barrere is a good man and Bu- 
chanan says a good colleague, but he might become stiff and 
intransigent if in a high position in Paris or in London. He 
is very independent, says what he thinks, is frank and 
straightforward, but has strong views which he will not 
surrender easily. He says that L. G. gave Nitti his photo- 
graph and on it was the dedication *' To my spiritual self " ! 



14 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

Thursday, January 13, 1921. Went to the Consulta at 
10 A.M. to have a talk with Count Sforza, the Italian 
Minister for Foreign Affairs. An agreeable man with dis- 
tinction and dignity. He inspires confidence and trust in 
his word. I told him of my mission. He spoke in English. 
He was practising on me, I imagine. We gradually ap- 
proached the question of Italian policy. He is, of course, 
for the maintenance of the Entente. He does not desire 
the restoration of Austria in any form, believing that she 
would be the satellite of Germany and that Italy did not 
desire Germany as a neighbour. As things were, and even 
if the present Austria united with Germany some day, we 
could work the Slav and other States carved out of Austria 
and rule by dividing. I told him that I understood there 
was a secret clause in the Treaty of Rapallo directed 
against a Habsburg restoration in Hungary. He admitted 
that this was so, but said that it was not directed against 
Hungary. I told him how Italy seemed to me to be direct- 
ing her activities eastward and to be planning an Eastern 
policy and directing her emigration towards the eastern 
shores of the Mediterranean. He admitted the Eastern 
trend of policy, but said that it was for commercial and in- 
dustrial reasons. As for emigration, he did not think that 
any Italian Government could direct it away from its 
natural channels, and that any mass of emigrants directed 
to Turkey would alarm the Turks and arouse their suspi- 
cion. The emigrants would go if there were concessions 
and to find profitable work. I said that there was an 
oflScial bureau ^ for emigration, but he said that this was 
for the protection of emigrants and not for their direction 
to appointed districts. He shares Barrere's views of the 
danger to Constantinople from the Russians. He would 
not describe the Russians as Bolshevists because all 
Russia was Bolshevist, and it created a false impression to 
describe them as anything but Russians, He was sur- 
prised that the danger to Constantinople was not appreci- 
ated in England, and wondered why it was not compre- 

^ There are two, one Governmental, the other Catholic. 



VISIT TO COUNT SFORZA 15 

hended that with Turkey secured to us we should divide 
the two streams of Russian enterprise, one of propaganda 
in the West, and the other of military conquest in the East. 
These streams united in Turkey, and consequently it was 
necessary to have the Turks on our side. Why was our 
Government so hostile to the Turks? I put it down to the 
influence of the old Gladstonian policy which L. G. had 
inherited when younger, and said that Turkey had ex- 
hausted our patience. S. was in favour of revising the 
Turkish Treaty. He did not think that the Greeks could 
hold their present frontiers. It was one thing to eat and 
another to digest. Italy had not the intention of sending 
any troops or expeditions to Asia Minor, and even if she 
were given Smyrna she would not place a man there. He 
thought Italy's total force in the East was only three 
thousand men. There was only one Italian battalion at 
Constantinople to show the flag. 

I begged permission to ask a second indiscreet question, 
namely, whether Italian rifles had been sent to Mustapha 
Kemal and whether he was in communication with Kemal. 
He said that Mustapha Kemal was an old friend of his. He 
was an honest man and a loyal soldier, and when he was 
once on the point of being arrested, S. had offered him the 
sanctuary of the Italian Embassy. Italy had never sent 
an official mission to Kemal, but was in touch with him by 
agents — like the British, added S. mischievously. As for 
rifles he assured me positively that not one had been sent. 
He told me an amusing story on this subject. A Turk had 
come to him to beg for rifles and had told him that one 
day a young and good-looking boatman on the Bosphorus 
had been asked by a pretty lady to row her across. He 
handed her in, looked at her, and remarked enigmatically, 
"They are sure to say so." He said nothing more and 
began to row. The lady's curiosity was aroused, and when 
halfway across asked him what his remark had meant. 
He replied, "You are pretty and I am young. They are 
sure to say that we are lovers, so why should we not be.''" 
The Turk had applied the moral to his own request for 



16 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITAL^ 

rifles, but S. said that loyalty forbade him to accede to the 
request. I asked his permission to make the fact known 
and he gave it. 

We discussed Italian journals. S. said that the French 
system of semi-oflScial journalism did not exist in Italy. 
He saw Malagodi and named the Trihuna as representing 
best his views. The Corriere was a serious and important 
organization. Most papers were for and against the 
Government according to the views of the journalists 
engaged. The latter were very independent, lived on little, 
and went in neither for luxury nor parade. He thought 
that their moral fibre was strengthened by these customs 
and he had a great regard for them. I asked about a 
certain paper and commercial interests. He thought 
that such things might be, but considered X one of the 
most brilliant of journalists and a man incapable of 
writing to order. He described how Giolitti, the Prime 
Minister, when on a holiday, went to his little cottage near 
Turin where there were only two little maids, and how he 
spent his spare time at the village inn with the notary, the 
doctor, etc. This simplicity of life S. considered a great 
strength and I could not but agree. 

We talked of Germany and I told him how glad I should 
be when all the Allied missions in that country were with- 
drawn, for their presence there might always produce an 
incident and was a serious danger. S. agreed and said that 
the Inter-Allied mission in Austria, of which an old 
Italian General was the head, ate up by its demands half 
the Austrian revenue. He had applied to the Supreme 
Council to close it down, but had met with a refusal at the 
French instance. I understood him to say that the Italians 
were under orders to come away. 

S. admires the Greeks and thinks them a vital force, 
but describes them as an Eastern people. He asked me to 
come and see him after my return. He agreed that we 
three allies must keep together, but, rather by his silence 
than his words, left me under the impression that he was 
not at all enthusiastic about the French. I told him that 



BUCHANAN'S WARNING TO THE TSAR 17 

I knew and liked de Martino, his new Ambassador in 
London, but that we all regretted Imperiali who had left 
many friends in London. S. said that after a diplomat 
had been in London for eleven years things began to stag- 
nate, and that he had to get a move on. I allowed that 
foreign politics were often a problem of dynamics and 
that a Minister long in a foreign country was apt to re- 
gard it as one of statics. I hoped that he was satisfied 
with the Ambassador we had sent to him and appreciated 
his qualities. S. was very nice about Sir George Buchanan 
and said that he was delighted to deal with such a loyal 
and straightforward man who united in himself all the 
best traditional qualities of the English diplomatist. 

Friday, January 14, 1921. Met M. Metaxas, formerly 
Greek Minister in London, who hopes, I fancy, to return 
there, and describes M. Rangabe as Charge d 'Affaires. 
We had a chat about Greece, and he asked me to carry 
a despatch of his to Athens to-morrow which I agreed 
to do. Met at the house of Major General Duncan, our 
Military Attache, various people including the late Greek 
Minister here M. Caramelos, the U.S. General Churchill 
and his wife on a tour of inspection of the U.S. Military 
Attaches abroad, and several Italian and other people. 
Duncan thinks that the Turks rightly determined to 
secure themselves by attacking Armenia and the Greeks 
at Smyrna. A nice young Assistant Naval Attache 
present. 

Sir G. Buchanan came in at five to my rooms and read 
my record of the talks with Barrere and Count Sforza. 
He also read my two articles for the D. T. on the situa- 
tion in Italy and approved of them, telling me that his 
own despatches to the F.O. were on the same lines. He 
then recounted to me the whole story of his warning of 
the late Tsar. It was in the middle of January, 1917, the 
day that the news of Count Benckendorff's death had 
arrived. He described all the circumstances in which the 
warning was given, and the very words he had used. It 
was a most tragic story, and no monarch can, indeed, ever 



18 PERSONS AND POLITICS IN ITALY 

have received a more honest and terrible warning. I 
thought his action did him great honour and would always 
be a credit to the sincerity and courage of British diplo- 
macy. I could not get the scene and the terrible and pro- 
phetic words out of my head for the rest of the day. 

Saturday, January 15. Left Rome 8.30 p.m. and reached 
Brindisi midday Sunday, lunched on the quay and left 
at 6 P.M. on the Palacky, formerly Austrian-Lloyd, now 
Lloyd Triestino. Reached Corfu 6 a.m. Monday. 

January 17. Went on at noon. Calm so far, sky cloudy. 
Rather chilly. Sir Edward Boyle with his wife and mother 
on board. We passed through the Corinth Canal early 
Tuesday. A great achievement and very impressive, but 
the banks need sloping, as they keep falling in. Our ship 
over four thousand tons. I believe the canal takes ships of 
twenty -four feet draught. Arrived at the Piraeus 11 a.m. 
and was met by a Royal boat which took me off. A car 
whisked me up to Athens in no time. Am lodged at the 
Grand Bretagne. 



CHAPTER II 
THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

Athens — A talk with Lord Granville — Princess Christopher's views — A 
ceremony at the Piraeus — Blessing the waters — Enthusiasm for the King 

— At Prince Nicholas's Palace — The Patriarch arrives — Greek wines — 
The Turkish policy — Colonel Rangabe — M. Guy Beringer on Greek dis- 
cipline — Colonel Mayes on physical training in Greece — An audience 
with the King — His views on current events — Prince and Princess An- 
drew — A talk with the Greek Chief-of-StafiF on the campaign in Asia Minor 

— M. Gounaris on current events and politics — Back to Herodotus — M. 
Calogheropoulos on the financial position — A conversation with the Prime 
Minister, M. Rhallys — Colonel Nairne — A visit to the Bay of Salamis — 
"Ilthi" — H.M. the Queen Mother — A talk with M. Stratos — Venizelist 
journalists at sea — Tyranny of Venizelist agents — M. Maximos on Greek 
finance — Admiral Kelly — Visitors — The Archimandrite of Rhodes — A 
luncheon with the King and Queen — The Crown Prince of Roumania — A 
visit to Tatoi — Colonel Pallis on the operations — Strengths and chances 
of Greeks and Turks — Mr. Rawlings on commerce — General Dousmanis 

— General Gramat on the Greek Army — Election and Plebiscite figures — 

— A conversation with the Italian Minister, M. Montagna — Views of M. 
de Billy, the French Minister — A farewell audience with the King — A 
final dinner with M. Gounaris at Phaleron — Corfu — The Governor's Pal- 
ace and Mon Repos. 

Tuesday y January 18, 1921. Delivered Metaxas's de- 
spatch and Prince Christopher's letter : then called at our 
Legation and had a talk with Lord Granville. I told him 
of my recent experiences and gave him my point of view. 
He told me the position here, and of the frank absurdity 
of the situation with all the Allied Ministers sulking in 
their Legations because we were cross about the defeat 
of Venizelos and the restoration of the King. He has not 
even been sent the official text of Mr. Lloyd George's 
speech on Greece of December 22 last, and I promised him 
mine and also the diary of my talks in Rome. Had a good 
long talk. I hope that the misconception of the state of 
sentiment in Greece has not done him harm, as he is too 
good a man to lose. 

The Italians were well-informed about the elections, 
says Granville, and had a network of consuls who enabled 
the Italian Minister to warn the Consulta. Gunther, the 



20 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

United States First Secretary in Rome, was also on the 
right side, probably informed by the Consulta, and banked 
on it in a long report to America. A nice Legation house 
with a good view of the Acropolis. 

In the afternoon met Princess Christopher at Prince 
Nicholas's Palace and had a good talk with her on public 
affairs. She says that the enthusiasm on the King's return 
was wonderful and lasted for several days. The people 
were perfectly mad with joy. She thinks the King an 
honest man. He is a sort of god to the Greeks who regard 
him as their own, named him by acclaim when he was 
born, and believe that his and Queen Sophie's names mean 
the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy that the Greeks will 
regain Constantinople under a Constantine. She thinks 
the Queen broken by Prince Alexander's death, and caring 
little for affairs. She fears that the King's health may not 
long remain good owing to the strain and the effect of 
his recent operations. She thinks that the Crown Prince 
is thoroughly good. Princess Christopher herself has re- 
ceived tremendous ovations here. Her name taken when 
she became Orthodox, Anastasie, means resurrection, and 
to the people it is a favourable omen. Letters and tele- 
grams pour in to her, calling her the " Star of America," and 
other beautiful names. She thinks the mass of the people 
not very highly civilised or educated, but not Bolshevist 
or Socialist, and easily led by a man. Many stories of 
excesses, murders, tortures, and imprisonments under the 
Venizelos regime. She declares that she has not spent one 
farthing on the Greek elections and authorises me to say 
so. She has much better use for her money, she says, than 
to use it for a purpose which can bring her no possible 
personal advantage. She says that she also would not 
stake her fortune against the seven million drachmas which 
X is said to have given to the Venizelos Election Fund, and 
all the public money which was spent on it. It was all 
wasted. The people took the money, wore Venizelos's 
emblem, an anchor, and solidly voted for the King. It was 
a sweeping victory. 



PRINCESS CHRISTOPHER'S VIEWS 21 

Princess Christopher finds her duty here. It is severe, 
and if she had known what trouble she would have found 
she "would never have gotten into it." She must build or 
buy a palace now and means to spend three or four months 
of each winter here. The Royal Family are very nice to 
her. It is fortunate for her that she has married the 
youngest brother, and so trots about last at the functions. 
Albania wants her for Queen, but she has not the faintest 
intention of accepting. She looked at the country as she 
passed and did not fancy being enthroned on a trackless 
mountain among banditti whose only idea of a Govern- 
ment is what they can get out of it. She wants a quiet, 
peaceful life and to enjoy herself with her friends in 
England. Prince Christopher, who is a cheerful, friendly, 
and sociable man, is wholly of her view. When asked if 
he would like to be King, he pulled off his hat and said 
that a crown could never remain on his head. His head of 
hair is not luxuriant. 

We had a talk on politics and I gave her my views, but 
said that I would form no final opinion till I had had a 
good look round here. 

Wednesday, January 19, 1921. Sir Edward Boyle, his 
wife and mother and I went off in a car with Count Mercati, 
the King's Marechal de la Cour, to the Piraeus to see the 
ceremony of blessing the waters. It is a ceremony as old 
as Christianity, but no one can trace its precise origin. A 
lovely drive along the coast from Phaleron. At the Piraeus 
a dais was raised over the water and the ships and houses 
round were black with spectators. All the Guilds were 
represented by their standards, all with the cross of 
St. George at the top. A great gathering of civil and mili- 
tary dignitaries. We were given a good place. After a serv- 
ice in the church, the King and Princes with the Crown 
Prince of Roumania walked in procession to the dais on 
which our party were also given places. Soon there came 
all the priesthood, ending up with the Patriarch of Athens, 
a venerable, white-bearded figure in red and gold vest- 
ments, and with a gold and red orthodox head-dress like 



22 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

an inverted flower pot. There were five or six more, equally 
magnificently attired. The Patriarch suffered much un- 
der Venizelos and was imprisoned in a dirty cell among 
rats. The people received him with shouts of "He is 
worthy!" The King had a fine reception. There was a serv- 
ice on the dais, with chanting and the burning of incense. 
Then a cross was thrown into the waters after being 
blessed and sprinkled with holy water. The Patriarch 
had blessed the King and Princes and saluted them : they 
were all bare-headed. It was fortunately a lovely sunny 
morning. As the final act was performed, the whole crowd 
broke out into frantic cheering, sirens sounded, the bells 
rang, and there was a great scene. The King's reception 
was very enthusiastic. The crowd pressed on to him. A 
woman threw herself before him in front of me and kissed 
his hand, and then fell flat upon the ground before him. 
There is no getting away from the fact that the King is the 
popular figure in Greece, and that the people are devoted 
to him. 

Met Granville and Admiral Howard Kelly, formerly of 
the Gloucester, and went on later to Princess Nicholas's 
Palace to lunch with her and her Prince, three nice 
daughters, pretty and with delightful manners, and a 
Lady-in-Waiting, with Prince and Princess Christopher. 
Princess Nicholas is the daughter of the Grand Duke Vladi- 
mir. A striking figure, handsome, deeply draped in black 
owing to her mother's death, and dignified. We had 
scarcely begun lunch before the Patriarch was announced. 
He had come to bless the household. We trooped out and 
the Patriarch blessed them all and they kissed a cross. He 
extended the cross to me and I bowed. At lunch some 
Greek wines which are sood if one knows which to get 
and where to get them: Mavrodaphne, like Tokay, rather 
sweet and very strong. Achaia or Domestica is a good 
light wine which King Edward liked. After lunch a long 
political talk about events. 

I found Prince Nicholas cool-headed, well-informed, 
and perspicacious. He has also a good acquaintance with 



THE TURKISH POLICY 23 

the old architecture of Athens and has a cultivated mind. 
I told him my views; that Greece could no doubt beat the 
Turks, but could set no limit to her conquests, and could 
not afford the cost of keeping the fourteen divisions mo- 
bilised. As France and Italy wished to square the Turks 
and revise the Treaty of Sevres, I saw no way out to accom- 
modate all interests but for the Greeks themselves to 
arrange with the Turks, but whether it was best for the 
Greeks to ask the Allies to join with them in doing so, or 
to act themselves, I could not yet decide. Prince Nicholas 
said truly that Greece believed she was carrying out the 
Allied mandate in her action at Smyrna, but that she 
would make friends with the Turks to-morrow if England 
gave a hint that she would support Greece in doing so. 
They asked rae to talk to the King as I had to them, and 
I said that I certainly would. They asked how England 
viewed affairs and I referred them to Mr. Lloyd George's 
speech and said that we supported the Greeks if the King 
could make good, but that some people thought his 
task very difficult. They all admitted the serious charac- 
ter of the financial problem. There were some contemp- 
tuous remarks about Germany at lunch, which rather 
surprised me. 

At the ceremony this morning I saw M. Rhallys, the old 
Prime Minister whose character Princess Christopher had 
sketched to me the day before. Rather a strong old face 
with a beaky nose. He watched the attitude of the crowds 
with close attention, blinking like an old owl. I was intro- 
duced to M. Gounaris, the War Minister, who seemed very 
glad to see me, and I found a note from him on my return, ■ 
bidding me welcome in the kindest terms, and saying that 
Colonel Rangabe, brother of the Rangabe in London, 
has been appointed to show me round. The latter came to 
call and we had a short talk. He places three Greek Army 
Corps each of three divisions in Asia Minor, one in Thrace 
of three divisions, one division at Salonika as reserve, and 
one other — total fourteen of 120,000 aggregate ration 
strength in Asia Minor and 40,000 in Thrace. In all about 



24 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

185,000 under arms. He thinks Kemal has three Army 
Corps, all weak, but admits that in the last operation they 
were found better organised than before, and that the 
strain of the Greek lines of communication had become 
considerable. 

Returned cards on a lot of official people who had called. 
In the evening the Granvilles and Sir Edward Boyle and 
his ladies dined with me. Talked alone to Granville after- 
wards and told him what Prince Nicholas had said about 
an agreement with the Turks, and that I was to see the 
King in the morning. What did he wish me to say.^^ He 
first thought of wiring Prince Nicholas's remark, and then 
decided to await my talk with the King. He advised me 
to let the King talk. Granville wanted to know who the 
next Prime Minister would be, when the Government 
would be formed, and how long the Greeks could go on in 
Asia Minor. He said it was quite true, as Prince Nicholas 
had declared to me, that the Greeks were fighting the 
Turks at our instance, and that Prince Nicholas was right in 
saying that the Greeks believed that they were following 
out our policy. But all this is surely a little out of harmony 
with the instructions to our Ministers at Athens to avoid 
the King, and also with the withdrawal of our financial 
support. 

Mr. Guy Beringer, Renter's agent here, came to call. 
He had been in the Smyrna area in August last and de- 
clared that the Greek discipline was rigid, and that the 
Turks told him that if there were a plebiscite, they would 
vote for the Greeks as the Kemalist bandits murdered the 
Armenians and robbed the Turks. 

Thursday, January 20, 1921. Colonel Mayes of the 
Canadian Army called. He is in charge of physical 
training in Greece; our other missions here are for Navy 
and the Police. He describes forty per cent of the Greek 
people as illiterate, or "blind" as they call it, but says that 
there are some of the most brilliant intellects in Europe 
here, and that children of eleven to fourteen know more 
about politics than men of twenty-three at home. He con- 



AN AUDIENCE WITH THE KING 25 

siders that eighty per cent of the country are Monarchist, 
but this does not mean that eighty per cent are anti- 
VenizeHst. The culminating error of the latter was that he 
asked the people to choose between him and the King, 
Mayes is convinced that no other regime but the present 
one can work. The physical instruction of the people has 
been neglected. He describes the Greeks as unaccustomed 
to give or return blows in personal contact and for this 
reason does not think them as hardy as our men. He would 
not be sure of them against a well-organised army of Turks 
if there were one. He came back to lunch with me and we 
had a good talk on the subject. His duties take him all 
over the country, so his opinion is of value. 

At 11.30 A.M. I went to the Crown Prince's Palace for an 
audience with the King and stayed talking with him till 
lunch time. I found him very much incensed against 
Granville for his attitude, and the King even attributed to 
him the refusal by Admiral Kelly of the Grand Cross of the 
Redeemer. I defended Granville and said that a British 
Minister had no authority to allow or refuse permission to 
a British subject to accept a decoration, since this was the 
privilege of our King. King Constantine does not realise 
that it is not Granville but our Government that dictates 
policy, and said he did not see how he could work with 
Granville, who was, he said, accredited to him and not to 
the Government. He said that the Allied Ministers would 
have to present new credentials, but did not think that 
Ministers already here need ask for an agrement. I found 
the King more set on operations against the Turks than on 
making peace with them. He said that he had 120,000 
men in Asia Minor and that Kemal had 30,000 Regulars, 
while some 20,000 irregulars might join them for short 
operations. I asked how long the Greeks could go on finan- 
cially and he said "a month to six weeks." He was not 
quite sure of the figures of the cost. I asked when the new 
Government would be formed and he said that he would 
keep strictly to his constitutional r61e and would allow the 
Parliament to decide this matter. He did not think that 



26 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

Rhallys would stay long. He thought that Gounaris was 
likely to have a sufficient majority to control the Chambers. 
We discussed French and Italian policy in the East. He 
told me that he had heard from Prince George that Briand 
was very well-disposed towards Greece, but a Reuter 
message from London of January 19 creates an unfavour- 
able impression here, as it makes the support of England 
to Greece in Asia Minor depend on the success of Greece in 
maintaining her position, and this she cannot do for long 
unless financially supported. He said that a German 
archaeologist (by name Dechtold, I think) had seen the 
Kaiser lately and that the latter had found great fault with 
the King's attitude. So, said the King, I am a pro-German 
for England, and the Kaiser does not approve of me! 

I told the King that before I came here I hoped for 
an amnesty, and even for a reconciliation between His 
Majesty and Venizelos, but now thought the latter idea 
hopeless on account of the intense bitterness I had found 
between the two sides. I told him that so far as I under- 
stood our policy we wished to support the Greeks if he 
could make good, but that many doubted whether he 
would be able to do so. It would not be very wonderful, he 
interrupted, when we have an army fighting the Turks at 
the instance of the Allies, and the latter not only do not 
lift a finger to help me, but hamper me in every possible 
way. 

We talked of persons and events. All seems quiet now in 
Greece and the new territories. He said how hard he found 
it not to reward all who had suffered for their loyalty to 
him. Some people had to be displaced to make room for 
his adherents, but those who had been dispossessed by 
Venizelos were far more numerous. He had to receive 
to-day a party of maimed people from some island. They 
had been assailed by Venizelos's troops and many of both 
sexes, and all ages, had been killed and wounded. It was 
incredible what sufferings Venizelos's agents had caused 
the people. I hear the same story on all sides here. He said 
that he had given orders that I was to be shown everything 



TALK WITH THE CHIEF-OF-STAFF 27 

and particularly recommended to me M. Maximos, the 
Director of the National Bank, for financial and commer- 
cial matters 

Had tea with Princess Christopher and met the Prince 
and Prince and Princess Andrew. She is Prince Louis of 
Battenberg's daughter and very good-looking and agree- 
able. We had an amusing talk of people and events. In the 
evening dined with the Granvilles at the Legation. A 
party of eight, including M. de Billy, the French Minister, 
M. Teniers, a witty French member of the International 
Financial Commission, Admiral and Mrs. Kelly, very 
pleasant people, and a number of Greeks, some of whom 
came in after dinner when we played the "pirate" Bridge 
usually played in Athens. In the second game if one gets 
doubled and loses, one is minus 400 above the line. Too 
restless a game for the English. 

Friday, January 21, 1921. Went off at 11 a.m. to talk to 
the Chief -of -Staff , General Vlachopoulos, who goes away in 
a few days to command an Army Corps in Asia Minor. A 
capable man, but not much personality. He showed me 
all the dispositions of the Greek and Turkish forces in this 
theatre. The Greeks are holding a front of some seven 
hundred kilometres, but their main forces are near Broussa 
in the north and Uschak in the south. At each point an 
Army Corps and one in Reserve. One division at Ismid 
under Harington. About 130,000 mouths to feed. In a 
short time an operation will be carried out to drive the 
Turks from the two railway junctions which they oc- 
cupy at present. He thinks that the Kemalist Army 
is a bluff and that they are not worth much: their di- 
visions often worth only a regiment and a half. Many 
parties of irregulars marked. The Turkish positions seem 
to be all known. What is behind Kemal's force does not 
appear to be known. Most of the Greek line is a mere chain 
of strong points. There is nothing much against them on 
the southern front on the Meander opposite the Italian 
sphere under the Treaty. In the last fight the Turkish 
A.C., which had drawn too near the Greeks of Broussa was 



28 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

driven back seventy kilometres and dispersed. The Greeks 
then retired as directed by their original operation orders. 
He thinks the French and Italian views about the Turks 
are a mere pretext and disbelieves in a Kemal-Bolshevist 
combination. The losses are light: seventeen officers and 
one hundred and fifty men killed and wounded in the last 
affair. The Greeks are now considerably beyond the fron- 
tier assigned by the Treaty. General Vlachopoulos will be 
succeeded by General Gouvelis next week. 

Saw M. Gounaris, the War Minister, later. A pleasant, 
capable man with a good presence. We spoke of political 
affairs. He thinks that Rhallys will be left in control as 
Prime Minister for the time. Gounaris authoritative and 
speaks w^ell. Like everyone else here he fails to understand 
the French. He thought that they had lost their political 
sense. It is incredible what lies are published about Greece 
in the Western papers of Europe.^ A typical example is the 
report that Venizelos was beaten because the Greeks were 
tired of being in the field. Actually there are five classes 
under arms, each of 30,000 men, but the 1920 and 1921 
classes would be with the colours in any case, as there is 
two years' service here, so there are only three classes more 
in the field than in peace-time. Gounaris spoke all over 
the country before the Elections and said that the ques- 
tion of demobilisation never came up at all and that he 
never referred to it. All the people accepted the cam- 
paign as a national policy and no one dreamed of oppos- 
ing it. 

Gounaris would mobilise five more classes to-morrow if 
they were needed, and even a general mobilisation would 
be accepted. Now that "The Son of the Eagle" had 
returned, the people were ready for anything and all their 
patriotic songs were of battle, victory, and glory. I said 
that we seemed to be throwing back twenty-three centuries 
to the time of Herodotus, and I asked whether the main 
theme of the father of history, namely, the hostility of 

' See the explanation by M. Venizelos and Prince Greorge, entry for Febru- 
ary 11. 



TALK WITH M. CALOGHEROPOULOS 29 

Europe to Asia, was not reproducing itself after al) this 
lapse of time, with the Greeks in the van once more. 
Gounaris agreed and said that Asia had not the power of 
revival possessed by the West and would always be beaten. 
I had sent on to him, through Princess Christopher, from 
London a string of questions about Greek affairs, financial 
and commercial, and he gave me a useful paper in good 
English with full replies. He felt assured that Briand would 
help Greece. If the Treaty were not revised, Greece would 
stand firmly by England. It was inconceivable to him that 
England should join with Turkey to coerce the Greeks, 
and falsify English principles. France and Italy wished 
to exploit the Turks because they could not exploit the 
Greeks. 

I saw M. Calogheropoulos, the Minister of Finance, in 
the afternoon after lunching at the Russian Restaurant 
with Colonel Rangabe, his wife, and the Chief of the Gen- 
eral Staff. The Minister gave me his views of the financial 
position. He says that they can go on for three or four 
months. They are spending over three million drachmas 
a day in Asia Minor or ninety-eight millions a month. If 
we can lend them three million sterling a month they can 
go on fighting later, or, if peace comes, they can hold their 
ground with one million sterling a month for a short time 
till their new territories are opened up and exploited. He 
saw his way to make good the present deficit to some ex- 
tent by changing the incidence of taxation, and in sug- 
gesting some new taxes. He thought that the Greeks were 
prepared to go on till they had nothing but their shirts to 
fight in. Dined with M. Vlasto and Prince and Princess 
Christopher in M. Metaxas's house. 

Saturday, January 22, 1921. Went to see the Prime 
Minister, M. Rhallys, at 1 p.m. A strong old face : he is very 
deaf and does not always catch what is said, while he does 
not speak at all clearly. He began by compliments neatly 
turned and called me "Your Excellency" which he said I 
deserved for political and intellectual reasons. The King 
had told him of His Majesty's talk with me. M. Rhallys 



30 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

was very cordial, but the real purpose of his talk was to get 
me to inquire unofficially whether our Government would 
consent to the King visiting his Army in Asia Minor, not 
as King but as Commander. The Army wanted the King, 
who was all a soldier, but he would not go if the British 
Government did not approve. It was thought that the 
King would finish off Kemal in two months. M. Rhallys 
did not like to inquire officially, as he evidently did not 
want a direct refusal. The King would go as Commander 
rather than King, and the Army desired his presence 
amongst them. I understood him to say that he wished 
me to obtain this information for him, but M. Rhallys 
speaks indistinctly and sometimes does not hear one's 
observations. So to make sure, I went in to tea with 
Princess Christopher where I met the Crown Prince of 
Roumania and pretty Princess Helene. He looked better 
without his military war hat and seemed much in love 
with the attractive and charming Princess. Much talk of 
the coming wedding. The Orthodox marriage service 
seems to be pretty terrible. They are to stand on a raised 
dais, and the service appears to be more than commonly 
crude and blush-raising. Princess Christopher told me 
afterwards that she believed that this was so, but that, as 
she did not know a word of Greek, it did not matter to her 
when she was married. Princess Christopher says that the 
ceremonials here are very well done and that the Master 
of the Horse department is very efficient. A merry party. 
When they had gone. Princess Christopher sent for 
Prince Nicholas, as I wished to make sure that I had 
correctly interpreted M. Rhallys's indistinct commission. 
Prince Nicholas went off to the King and came back in 
half an hour to say that the King, in pursuance of his con- 
stitutional role, could only say that, if I had understood 
that the Prime Minister had requested me to make the 
inquiry suggested, he could only advise that I should 
make it. It appears that the Government have hitherto 
prevented the King from going. M. Rhallys had reminded 
me that the Smyrna territory under the Treaty was not 



COLONEL NAIRNE 31 

yet officially Greek, and that they did not want to act 
contrary to Great Britain's views. M. Rhallys placed the 
Greek combatants available at 85,000 men. I told him 
that, as the Treaty of Sevres was not yet ratified, I did not 
see why the King should not join the Army, but M. Rhallys 
thought it was a question of tact and not of right. He did 
not want the King to go there if his presence would prove 
an inconvenience to the British Government. He said that 
the King desired to show the British Government his 
intention to co-operate cordially with them. In the after- 
noon went to the Acropolis with the Boyles. Fine sunny 
weather, but a brisk wind. Very interesting. There is no 
other capital in Europe so dominated physically by the 
past as Athens. 

Colonel Nairne, our Military Attache, dined with me 
and we discussed the military situation. All had gone well 
in the last fight, but there is a suspicion among the foreign 
colony that the men were better than the officers. Nairne 
complained of the recent appointments here of the Com- 
mandant de Place who held the same post in the December 
1916 affray, and of another officer, sentenced to twenty 
years' imprisonment for betrayal and surrender.^ 

Nairne says that Jugo-Slavia is reorganising her army 
on the basis of thirty divisions, and could smash Greece. 
He is Military Attache there too. He has heard from 
Harington that the latter awaits his news from Greece. 
Nairne has been awaiting Harington's from Constanti- 
nople, so Nairne is going to see Harington. I gather that 
Harington's reports on the Greeks are favourable. 

Sunday, January 23, 1921. Went off with the Boyles, 
Colonel Rangabe, and M. Rediadis, deputy for the Cyc- 
lades, to Xerxes's throne over the Bay of Salamis, where 
Rediadis most kindly and fully explained to us the battle 
of which he is a competent historian. I had little recol- 
lection that there were 200,000 men in the Persian fleet and 
60,000 in the Greek, or that 40,000 men were killed in that 

' I referred this to the Greeks and warned them that such acts made a bad 
impression. 



32 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

September day of the year 489 B.C., which was, perhaps, 
the most decisive battle in history for the greatness of its 
poHtical results. A peasant came out of a cottage and 
brought us a tray with wine. He gave as the toast " Ilthi,'* 
meaning *'He has come." The Greek peasant does not 
accept tips or bribes. A mechanic came out to help to 
repair our car when it broke down. He worked like a horse 
for half an hour and would accept no tip. Is it pride of race 
or what.? It is something to find one unsophisticated 
people left in Europe. 

Nairne came after lunch and we walked together and 
talked Greek affairs. A good soldier and most trustworthy. 
Had tea with Admiral and Mrs. Kelly. I thought the Ad- 
miral a sound, sensible man of much strength of character, 
indeed, rather a formidable personality, as I fancy the 
Italians found in the Adriatic. He thinks that Greece must 
now begin to build up from the foundations, and that it is 
useless to project a naval port to cost eight millions when 
there is scarcely a penny for the Navy. Like most others, 
he believes the King to be the oiAy salvation for Greece. 
He is sure that the French and Italians want to exploit the 
Turks and Asia Minor, and are hostile to the Greeks be- 
cause they cannot be exploited. Finance seems to be at 
the bottom of most affairs here. MacAlpin's, Jackson's, 
and another firm. Wells, I think, are competing for the 
Piraeus plans. 

In the evening I dined with the Prince and Princess 
Andrew to meet the Queen Mother, a very kindly and 
most dignified old lady. Princess A. told her that I had 
criticised, in my War Diary, the Royal practice of keep- 
ing people standing up, so the Queen Mother sat down 
and made me sit too. Princess Christopher says that the 
insides of Royal persons must be constructed on different 
principles from ours. Two very pretty and delightful 
daughters. Athens is a perfect treasure-house of beautiful, 
charming, and accomplished Princesses, all brought up in 
a thoroughly English way. A pleasant dinner and then a 
large number of people turned up for a reception, including 



TALK WITH M. STRATOS 33 

Prince and Princess Nicholas, Prince and Princess Christo- 
pher and others. I was the only Englishman there. I made 
the acquaintance of M. Stratos, the leader of the Con- 
servative Party, so called, but really of his own party, for 
Greek politics are personal. We had a good talk on Greek 
politics. The anti-Venizelist Union will act together in 
their choice of a President for the Chambers to-morrow. 
Gounaris has 100 to 150 followers in the House, Venizelists 
perhaps 100, and Stratos 50, while Rhallys, Calogher- 
opoulos and others have their small groups. There is a 
band of some fifty independent and young members who 
have not yet taken sides. Princess Andrew a charming 
hostess. Stayed late and had supper there. 

After lunch to-day there came in Dr. Sfikas of the 
Embros journal, who told me that his paper, though termed 
independent, was, in fact, strongly Venizelist. But neither 
the Venizelist papers nor the Venizelist deputies had any 
guidance or any mot d 'ordre from anyone, and they asked 
me to suggest a line of conduct for them. I said that the 
wish of England was to see all Greece pulling together, and 
that she was too small to allow herself the luxury of poli- 
tical divisions, exile, imprisonments, etc. But I refused to 
express any opinion upon what the Venizelists should do. 
This was their affair. I also said that I could not give him 
my impression on the general situation, as I had not yet 
completed my study of it. 

French influence here has been practically destroyed by 
France's own faults during the war and after it. Opinion 
is quite unanimous on this point, and on the fact that Eng- 
lish influence is supreme. France seems to have lost her 
political instinct as Gounaris declared, and maybe that 
the loss of her Russian Ally has destroyed the basis of her 
Eastern policy. 

I am impressed by meeting shoals of people who have 
been imprisoned, exiled, or ostracised by the Venizelists. 
It is really a tragedy in real life, and carries one back to 
the Middle Ages. I had no idea before I came here how 
utterly Venizelos was discredited in Greece, solely on ac- 



34 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

count of his internal policy. It may be mainly the fault 
of his agents and subordinates, but the fact remains that 
he is loathed. Hardly a person I meet but has suffered by 
Venizelos's reign of terror. He kept up the censorship to 
the last, so England is still most ill-informed. Stratos said 
to-day that Venizelos's tyranny was terrible, but that it 
was really weakness and not strength. The eternal answer 
to tyranny had been given at the Elections. But the 
country is to a man in favour of the foreign policy of Veni- 
zelos, and later on, when the misdeeds of his Cretans are 
forgotten, Greece will erect a great statue to him and admit 
that he deserved well of his country. 

The high esteem of England held in Greece, and the low 
esteem of France, are partly due to the reports from Mace- 
donia of the behaviour of the two armies. The reports 
about the British are most gratifying. The nicest things 
are said of them. It is declared that the French employed 
bad troops, and the latter are accused of all sorts of acts 
of indiscipline and crimes. 

Lent Gounaris's paper to Charles Bentinck, who is 
getting out some financial report for the Foreign Office. 

Monday, January 24, 1921. Saw M. Maximos, Governor 
of the National Bank, at 10.30 a.m. A short, dark man 
with a clever face. It appears that he wrote, or caused to 
be written, the report on finance, etc., which Gounaris gave 
me, so now I understand why it is so good. The main new 
thing which he told me was that Venizelos, when last in 
London, had received a promise ^ from Lloyd George to 
give Greece a loan of 3| million sterling a month to help 
them to carry on in Asia Minor. Maximos was in favour 
of Gounaris going to London when the matter was en 
train again. I asked for the date of the promise, as the ex- 
change might since have operated to our advantage, or 
that of Greece, but he could not give it. Maximos talked 
of ample security for the loan, and when I approached the 

* I asked later for proofs, but was told that Venizelos left no records, and the 
only reference to the promise is an entry in the proceedings of the National Bank 
at the time, when Venizelos made a statement on the subject to the formep 
Director. For M. Venizelos's explanation see entry for February 11. 



M. MAXIMOS ON GREEK FINANCE 35 

question of interest he talked of 5 to 5^ per cent, and then 
went as far as 6 per cent. We talked over the whole po- 
sition of Greece financially. Greece did not understand 
cheques which were never used here, so there was a large 
issue of notes, and a holder of notes could redeem them at 
any time by a bank cheque on London, Paris, or Wash- 
ington, at which capitals were kept the Greek cover. 

Venizelos's financial policy had been unfortunate. He 
had used the cover in America for recent transactions, and 
the King had only found the depreciated supply of France 
to play with. It was also the fact that Greece found great 
diflSculty in extracting her own money from abroad, as 
treasuries and not banks now held it, and all sorts of 
diflSculties and delays were now encountered. An English 
Under-Secretary of State had even given an answer in the 
House of Commons some time ago implying that these 
were British monies, and Maximos could only suppose that 
he had been misinformed. Maximos had gone to Paris to 
see Venizelos last July and had told the latter that he had 
to consider the chance of defeat at the elections. He had 
advised him to bring the King back, and to go for a united 
Greek policy. He had told Venizelos that he was wrongly 
informed about the state of opinion in Greece, and that 
his financial policy was unsound. He had tried to convince 
him for an hour and a half, but Venizelos was immoveable 
and in the clouds. It was only a week or so before the 
elections that Venizelos had realised the true position and 
then it was too late. 

Maximos said that surely the duty of a British Minis- 
ter at Athens was to maintain neutrality between parties 
and to hear both sides. He thought that Granville had 
regarded every question from the Venizelist point of view. 
I defended Granville and said that Maximos's ideas were 
criticisms after the event, and that it was not proved to 
me that Maximos and I would not have made the same 
mistake in Granville's place. We must remember the 
whole story of Granville's association with Venizelos, the 
policy of our Government, and the state of war. Maximos 



36 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

allowed it, but said that we still had the right of private 
criticism. I said that I wished that a word might be passed 
round that these attacks on Granville might cease. I heard 
them everywhere, and they did not please me. They 
might result in ill-feeling against Greece, and they served 
no Greek end. They might even have the opposite result 
of what was intended by them. 

Maximos said that the depreciation of the currency and 
fall of exchange were due to natural causes and could not 
be helped. He saw no royal road to improvement except 
action on a steady and gradual incline to recover parity. 
Greece had great resources, but needed time to exploit 
them. Macedonia and Thrace would greatly aid with 
wheat in time, but there would still be a minor deficit for 
Asia Minor to fill. Exploitation of the good Greek lignite 
would help in coal, but large works were needed for proper 
exploitation. 

Maximos said that when Greeks spoke of the Allies, they 
now meant England who had the mastery of the world. 
France's influence was dead. Italy not of much account. 
Greece wished to act with England, but without financial 
help in Asia Minor could not long continue to carry out the 
Allied policy. He agreed that Greece required fifty years 
to solidify her gains by the war, and I warned him of ambi- 
tious projects against Constantinople which would ruin 
everything. I told him that we must retain a card of re- 
entry to the Black Sea in order to act against the Bolshe- 
vists in case of need, and the international control was the 
only solution that I could see for the present. 

Saw Granville, who has been laid up in bed for two 
days, and told him of Rhallys's question and asked him 
how to reply. Granville said that when the press had 
talked some time ago of the King's intention to go to the 
Army, he had asked the Foreign Office to advise him on 
the point, and they had told him that the question was one 
for the Greek Government. After some consideration he 
thought that I might tell Rhallys this, while adding that 
he could not commit the Government to a definite under- 



ADMIRAL KELLY 37 

taking. He, Granville, was all in favour of the King going 
out to the Army, but advised me to add, as my own opin- 
ion, that the King should not perform acts of Sovereignty, 
especially in Smyrna, but merely act as Commander-in- 
Chief, and go more or less straight to the Army Head- 
quarters. I said that this concorded with the opinion of 
Rhallys that the King should go out in a military capacity. 

Prince and Princess Christopher called and took me to 
the Conrad Caftanzoglubs' house to lunch. These Athens 
feeding functions are interminably long. The Princesses 
and their pretty little daughters are the pick of the fem- 
inine basket here. Their homes all seem English, and all 
the families talk nothing but English. 

Tried to see M. Rhallys, but he was at the Chambers. 
Left a message that I had a reply for him. Asked the 
Christophers to tell Prince Nicholas that it was all right, 
but gave them no details. Just while I was dressing for 
dinner, M. Rhallys asked me to come round, so I went to 
him at 8.30 p.m. and gave him the reply. The Ministers of 
War, Marine, Finance, and another were present. It was a 
sort of private meeting of the Chief Ministers into which 
I found myself flung as a thick curtain was drawn aside by 
the old Prime Minister. Then it appeared that M. Rhallys 
also wanted to know whether Granville had received a 
reply to a request by Rhallys a good time ago about a 
journey of Rhallys to London. Granville had never had a 
reply, as I knew, but Rhallys wants the question repeated, 
and wishes to go to London in two or three weeks. He 
had asked me to inquire so as to avoid another official 
snub. 

Dined with the Kellys and Lady Granville. Much 
amusing talk about the recent crisis. It seems that waiters 
and cooks are or were Venizelists and all maidservants 
Monarchists. School children of three or four are divided 
into the same parties, and have battles. Greece lives on 
politics. 

Tuesday, January 25, 1921. I notice that I have omitted 
to state that I was informed that Venizelos had warned the 



38 THE RETURN OF KING CONST ANTINE 

late King Alexander that the elections might go against 
him, and had suggested that in this case Venizelos might 
practically rule in the Smyrna district, and had asked 
Ejng Alexander to consent. The latter had informed 
Prince George of the conversation in Paris. 

In the morning interviewed an intolerable number of 
people who come to see me every day and ask for advice 
and for my views on all sorts of subjects. The last visitor 
was the Archimandrite of Rhodes who came in full 
canonicals, and made a long complaint of the Italian ad- 
ministration of the island where there are 40,000 Greeks, 
including 8000 Jews.^ The Italians have 1000 troops and 
gendarmes. He had brought a written protest and signed 
it in my presence, and that of Colonel Rangabe. He was 
in very deadly earnest. His main complaints are the 
Italian failure to give the local Government promised, 
interference with trade, and the refusal to allow the return 
of Rhodians who had left the island during the last eight 
years, or the departure of Rhodians from Rhodes. I don't 
suppose that we can do much, as Greeks have given away 
Greeks, but Lord Burnham will have to decide. 

Went to lunch with the King at 1 p.m. Queen Sophie, 
the Crown Prince of Roumania and his fiancee, and one 
other daughter. The little youngest girl of eight came in 
later and sat with us. She is a pet. Sat afterwards in one 
of the sitting-rooms. The Queen showed me the garden in 
which she takes great pride. We all talked, and then I 
talked to the King alone. I am sorry to hear from the 
King that the Comitajis have appeared again on the 
Bulgarian frontier. He says that the Bulgarians have not 
given up all their arms, and have 7000 officers in excess of 
the stipulated number under the Treaty. He wishes to ap- 
point Count Mercati as Greek Minister in London, a good 
choice, as he is a very agreeable and gentlemanly fellow. 

I found Queen Sophie quite good-looking and very 
agreeable, but she looks terribly sad, and I am told she 

' Count Sforza told me later that the population was equally divided betweeu 
Greeks, Turks, and Jews. 



LUNCHEON WITH THE KING 89 

spends long hours at her son Alexander's grave at Tatoi. 
We did not touch on any political subject in conversation 
together. 

I told the King about the talk with M. Rhallys. He 
asked what the latter had said. I told him that he had said 
nothing for or against the King going to the Army when I 
gave him my reply to his question. The King said that he 
never could understand what M. Rhallys said — neither 
can Granville nor I. He took the advice about Asia Minor 
in very good part and said that he would follow it. This 
advice was that the King should not have a Royal progress 
at Smyrna, but should go out at the last moment to 
G.H.Q. and act as Commander-in-Chief only and not as 
King. He objected that G.H.Q. was at Smyrna. I replied 
that he could make his advanced headquarters somewhere 
else, and that political and military considerations recom- 
mended this course. He would not wish to give the Turks 
warning of an impending attack. 

The Crown Prince of Roumania very agreeable. A 
very homely family circle. All these Greek royal palaces 
remind me of English country houses, and the presiding 
spirit is British so far as it is not Greek. 

Went off with the Prince and Princess Christopher in 
the afternoon by open car to Tatoi, the King's country 
house. That of Queen Olga is near by. A stately little 
Byzantine chapel on a hill in the woods, with the graves of 
King George and Prince Alexander outside. Lonely and 
solemn. A vast area of the woods round, and the King's 
house, were burnt in a fire attributed to the French during 
the occupation. The village folk gave the Prince and Prin- 
cess a very hearty welcome everywhere. Saw various people 
in the evening after tea at Prince Nicholas's Palace. Tried 
to concoct a formula with a Venizelist editor later for a 
demand from our Government for the protection of the 
Venizelists. They want us to do something for those who 
aided us during the war, but I think they have no grounds 
for their fears of reprisals. There is not one of the Veni- 
zelists even in prison. 



40 THE RETURN OF IQNG CONSTANTINE 

Dined late at the hotel. 

Wednesday, January 26, 1921. After visiting our Lega- 
tion went to see Colonel Pallis, Chief of the Staff of the 
Greek Army in Asia Minor, who is in Athens for a few 
days, A good staff officer and a man of capacity who ex- 
pounded to me for two hours over the maps and with 
great lucidity the whole situation of the Greek forces in 
Asia Minor. They are mainly in two groups. First Corps 
about Uschak and Third Corps at Broussa with a curtain of 
troops between holding the interval, and the Second Corps 
in reserve forming also the curtain. The Third Corps has 
one division under Harington holding the zone east of the 
Bosphorus. 

The season is cold and will continue so till March when 
rains are expected most of the month, and by April it will 
be suitable weather for campaigning. There is plenty of 
wood on the ground and the troops are housed in huts. 
Food and moral favourable. The troops have warm cloth- 
ing. There are about 110,000 altogether, and Colonel 
Pallis places the combatants at 60,000 with 400 guns. 
The Turks are along the railway and the main points are 
at Afiun-Karahissar and Eskishehr. Colonel Pallis rates 
the Turkish Regulars at 30,000 men and 100 guns, but 
believes the figures to be nearer 20,000 men and 50 guns. 
They have scanty ammunition and only three aeroplanes. 
They are much dependent for transport on their railways. 
He considers their defeat to be an easy task and is sure of 
the fact. He thinks that if all goes well for the Turks in 
Armenia, they may have 10,000 more to bring up, but can- 
not do it within two months. The Bolshies, even if they 
joined the Turks, could not arrive before next summer. 
He thinks it useless to regard the Turks as a barrier to 
Bolshevism, as the Turks have no men nor organisation. 
Their losses in the recent wars have been immense. The 
Greek position is offensive and aids future strategy which 
will aim at great results. It is only justified because either 
block of Greek troops can hold their own against the Turks. 
Colonel Pallis says that if the Turks had the forces some- 



GREEK OPERATIONS IN ASIA MINOR 41 

times attributed to them they would have attacked long 
ago. It would be possible, if necessary, for the Greeks to 
attack before April. In the last raid the water in the 
water-bottles of the Greeks froze. There are some 10,000 
men in a Greek division. No Turkish division is over 
3000 strong. 

It is possible for the Greeks to place 300,000 men in the 
field by a general mobilisation, but there are enough now 
for the present purpose. The occupied territory behind 
the armies is divided into regimental zones, one regiment 
per zone, and three in all. Other regiments will be needed 
to hold the country as the Greeks go on. The Turks are 
happy under the Greeks and many come in from the 
country outside the Greek lines for protection. The 
25,000 armed bands of Kemal — the figures that I am 
given on this point vary a good deal — are a sort of 
mounted infantry. There are three large bands and many 
others. They follow some resolute leader and ill-treat the 
people, who are quiet folk and sick of war. Colonel Pallis 
thinks the bands useless for fighting, but they shoot the 
Regulars when they retire and act as battle police. Kemal's 
regulars are about 10,000 old soldiers and the rest men 
forcibly recruited. As Kemal requisitions young men, and 
the money and food of the rest, his rule is unpopular. In 
the last operation, 10,000 of the civil population followed 
the Greeks back to their lines. Eskishehr is a large town 
of 50,000 inhabitants, and it was not in the interests of the 
Greeks to occupy it in the recent attack, as the population 
would have been massacred or thrown on Greek hands. 
No Bolshies or Boches have yet appeared. Colonel Pallis 
thinks that French and Italian traders supply Kemal. An 
Italian ship was stopped by a British destroyer off Adalia 
and found to contain clothing. French machine guns — 
brand-new with the polish fresh, and with ammunition — 
have been recently taken and are on their way to Smyrna. 
Kemal has Fiat cars which come from Italy. Colonel Pallis 
thinks that certain foreigners act as agents provocateurs to 
stir up the Turks to make complaints, and that they also 



42 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

inform Kemal of the Greek position. There were no com- 
plaints before these foreigners came. 

In the afternoon went to see Mr. Rawlings, commercial 
attache. The Board of Trade, Foreign Office, and Over- 
seas Trade Department seem all to have some share in the 
new commercial arrangement. Rawlings describes him- 
self on his card as First Secretary of Legation, and this 
gives him a better position with the officials here than if 
he were a representative of some other department. The 
consuls are also now better paid. They report politically 
to the British Minister, but commercially to Rawlings. 
They should keep a Minister informed of what is going on, 
but all depends on how they are treated and whether their 
advice is listened to. I have never known this to be prop- 
erly done except under Sir William White at Constan- 
tinople in old days. The Germans used to understand the 
system best and to send for consuls and talk to them at 
length. Rawlings thinks that economics lead politics now, 
but that politics may make or mar trade. They mar it in 
Greece. We were in a privileged position until we closed 
the door financially to Greece who had drawn on 3| 
millions of the account opened for them and then found it 
closed, and the King not recognised. It would all have 
come back to us in the form of contracts, concessions, and 
trade profits. Now trade is dead, and the warehouses are 
encumbered with goods in bond which the purdiasers will 
not take out if the exchange has fallen since they pur- 
chased, and they cannot be made to pay because of the 
moratorium which is constantly being prolonged. Even if 
they could be made to pay, it would be useless to ruin cus- 
tomers. Rawlings thinks that we are playing into the 
hands of Germany. The fluctuation of the exchange is 
fatal. In whatever direction we change our course we find 
snags, for if our exchange went down we could not afford 
to buy abroad and as we are a great importing nation this 
would not suit us. Rawlings thinks that our recent polit- 
ical action against Greece has been most foolish so far as 
trade is concerned and has reported this opinion officially. 



GENERAL DOUSMANIS 43 

The French have comparatively little trade and so the 
course into which they dragged us harms them much less. 
M. Teniers, the French member of the I.F.C., told me 
to-day that the Supreme Council had put off the Eastern 
question matters to February 21 when it will consider it in 
London. He also said that the real Greek deficit was not 
500 millions, but 1500. To show advances as assets was 
fallacious. It was all un true. But the real figures appear 
clearly in my Maximos memorandum. 

Dined with the Boyles and the Serbian Minister here 
M — something — itch. He held forth much on Balkan pol- 
itics and finds the Croats very contumacious. He admits 
the clause in the Rapallo Treaty against the Habsburgs. 

Thursday, January 27, 1921. Paid a lot of calls on 
French and Italian Ministers, on General Gramat, Chief 
of the French Mission, etc., and lunched with Mr. Charles 
Bentinck and his sister and Mr. and Mrs. Eang, both of 
our Legation. 

In the afternoon went, at his request, to see General 
Dousmanis who surrendered Roupel during the war, and 
was condemned to hard labour for life. He tried to con- 
vince me that he was not a pro-German, and thought that 
the northern frontier of New Greece was very insecure and 
had been settled by Venizelos in a hurry without any 
regard to natural frontiers. 

Tea with Princess Christopher and a long talk. She 
told me of her duties as a Royal Princess and they seemed 
to me to constitute a dog's life. She says that "any bob- 
tailed Greek" can write to ask for her photo, and she has 
to send it. A long talk over the situation. 

In the evening was to have dined with Nairne, but he 
had a high temperature, so Colonel Schallenberger, the 
U.S. Military Attache, whom I had met on Pershing's 
Staff, and his pretty wife dined with me, and we had a 
good chat. He lives usually at Belgrade, and shares most 
of my ideas about Greece. So does his Minister, I gather. 
He says that the Jugo-Slavs have sixteen divisions formed, 
and that the United States thinks it shameful to withdraw 



44 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

its promise of financial aid just because the Greeks wanted 
the King back. 

Official confirmation came to-day that the consideration 
of the Eastern question is postponed until February 21, 
when it is to take place in London. Greece is to be asked 
to attend, and the Turks, including Kemal or his repre- 
sentatives. The Greeks far from pleased, but I tell them 
all that it is a perfectly reasonable course. 

Friday, January 28, 1921. Had a walk round "Shoe 
Lane" with the Boyles and visited a very exquisite old 
Byzantine church. Went on to see General Gramat, head 
of the French Military Mission. A short burly officer, 
competent and without fire. He told me that there were 
nine Greek divisions in Asia Minor and five in Epirus, in 
all 183,000 men, of whom 30,000 in Thrace and 100,000 in 
Asia Minor, the latter with 65,000 to 70,000 combatants. 
They have in Asia 36 long French guns of 120 mm. and 
36 English 6-inch howitzers. The transport is defective, 
and the roads so bad that the motor lorries can only carry 
one-fourth of full loads. They have secured only 600 
camels. He thought the Greek Army pretty good and 
well-found, but they ought to have three months' reserve 
of wheat in Greece and there is no reserve. He thought 
that the information about Kemal's Army lacked preci- 
sion. The depots are empty in Greece and the last divi- 
sion sent out was to make good strengths. There are six 
classes now under arms, three of serving soldiers, and 
three of reservists, but the Class 1913 counts as two owing 
to some administrative change. They can call out four- 
teen or sixteen classes in all, and had 300,000 men under 
arms and fifteen divisions in 1918, but there would be de- 
ficiencies in guns and material if the attempt were repeated 
now. The Greek field guns are Q5 mm. mountain and 75 
mm. field. They have very few aeroplanes, possibly not 
ten, and though the aviators are good they break many 
machines. Greece needs spare parts for lorries and planes, 
and a skilled repairing staff of mechanics is greatly needed. 
In the highlands of Asia Minor, where the Greeks now are, 



ELECTIONS AND PLEBISCITE • 45 

the average level above the sea is 3000 feet and the climate 
is severe. He puts the French force at Constantinople at 
one strong division and the English at as least as much. 
With the fleet to help, Constantinople is safe. The average 
Greek contingent is 22,000, excluding the new territory. 
There are many deserters and absentees who do not re- 
turn from leave, about 16,000 altogether, but he did not 
mention desertion at the front. 

Lunched with M. and Mme. Giro, M. Rangabe p^re, 
and Colonel Rangabe and his wife. A comfortable and 
large house. M. Giro has been many years in India in the 
Ralli firm. Mme. Giro said that while her maid was 
brushing her hair to-day she inquired anxiously about the 
London Conference, and asked what it meant. All the 
servants and children discuss politics endlessly. Someone 
of the party had been away in the hills recently, and 
at night the people were discussing politics — French, 
English, and Italian — practically all night. These were 
common people. 

Colonel Rangabe brought me a paper that I had asked 
him to procure at the Ministry of the Interior, namely, a 
return of the elections and the Plebiscite with the official 
figures. This shows that about 732,000 voted at the last 
elections and over a million at the Plebiscite. In the 
latter voting, only 10,000 votes were given against the 
King. In Crete, where 17,000 voted, the Venizelists were 
all returned, seven in number, but in the Plebiscite in 
Crete 12,000 voted for the King, There were some 5Q 
Venizelists returned in Thrace under martial law rule, 
but, as the Royalists had not been allowed to nominate 
their candidates, the elections might be invalidated. Some 
thirty out of the fifty-six Venizelists said that they had 
only posed as Venizelist to get their names put forward, 
and now expressed their wish to join the Government 
parties. The Tribunals had still to decide the legality or 
otherwise of numerous elections. Nominally about 110 
Venizelists were returned, but the figures look like coming 
down a good deal. 



46 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

Went to have a talk with M. Montagna, the Italian 
Minister, who told me how it came about that he, alone, of 
the Allied Ministers, was properly informed about the 
recent elections. He had found his two colleagues hand in 
glove, and in close touch with Venizelos. While friendly, 
they did not show much disposition to consult him and he 
was somewhat tenu a VScart. He was "thrown on his own 
modest resources" and so mobilised all his means, namely, 
the rather large staff of the Legation, all the consuls, and 
the Italian missions for fisheries, gendarmerie, archae- 
ology, etc., etc. He had not a penny to spend on all this. 
He applied the whip to the consuls, and in fact obtained a 
fine intelligence service, and soon became aware that the 
people meant to end the Venizelist tyranny, which by its 
oppression and cruelty had utterly disgusted the people. 
He said that the treatment of the people by the Cretan 
bravos was terrible, and that one could not so much as bow 
to a Royalist friend without being thrown into prison. 
They spied even upon him and upon everybody. He could 
not consider that Venizelos had no responsibility for these 
acts of his Government, though this is what was being 
said now. 

M. Montagna's opinion of the military position accords 
generally with mine. Italy, said Montagna, desired pacifi- 
cation and then exploitation. Would the continued pres- 
ence of the Greeks in Smyrna, he asked, permit of exploi- 
tation? Smyrna was the chief port of Asia Minor. If they 
give you facilities for your trade, will you be satisfied? I 
asked. He said that he thought so. And you will, of course, 
give reciprocal facilities in the Italian Zone? This he did 
not seem to hanker after, but in the end, after a long talk, 
I did not find that his views differed seriously from mine. 

He thought the Greek people good and solid. He asked 
why we monarchical countries did not support the monar- 
chical principle instead of throwing every diflSculty in the 
King's way, and treating him like dirt. Whatever a King 
might be elsewhere, in Greece he was everything, while we 
were injuring our trade and nationals by our foolish behav- 



CONVERSATION WITH M. MONTAGNA 47 

iour. He tliouglit that the folly of the present placing of 
the King in Coventry and cutting off financial supplies, in- 
jured British trade and interests more than any other. 
Italy had no great commercial interests in Greece. France's 
influence was dead. Here was a country which was a fort- 
ress of monarchy in a liquid world, but if we rendered the 
King's task impossible Bolshevism might creep in here too, 
and Italy did not wish that. 

We discussed the prospects of the London Conference 
and the names of the Greeks who might be sent. I thought 
Gounaris, Pallis, and Maximos would be the strongest 
team of the men I had met. Rhallys, we agreed, would be 
no good. Montagna thought that his health would not 
stand it, and I felt sure that Lloyd George would never 
have patience with an old man who could neither hear 
nor be understood. Tea with M. and Mme. Montagna and 
their staff. 

Saw Granville later, and told him about my talk with 
Pallis and about the election figures. Granville thinks 
well of Stratos, and does not ignore the chance of a com- 
bination to upset Gounaris. Montagna, on the other 
hand, told me that he expected the Venizelists to disappear 
in a month. They were being drawn to the other parties. 
The Greek Venizelist papers these two days have been 
preaching unity. The sinking Venizelist ship is being de- 
serted by the rats. I doubt whether there will be enough 
places to fit them into! 

X suggests that I should hint to the Ministers that 
Gounaris is not well seen in London, but I said that it 
would be against my judgement, as I thought he was the 
best man to go to help Lloyd George. 

Saturday, January 29, 1921. A long talk with Princess 
Christopher in the afternoon, and with Count Mercati. 
Went to see Nairne, who is still laid up. Nothing yet de- 
cided about the Greek representation at the London meet- 
ing on February 21. Spent the morning at the Museum with 
the Boyles and Mr. Wace who is one of the experts and 
interested us enormously. Should like to spend many days 



48 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

there. Colonel Rangabe lunched with me. Dined with the 
Boyles who had the Granvilles, Rawlingses, the Serbian 
Minister, M. Melas, the Venizelist deputy for Janina, and 
one other man. The Janina deputy talked Venizelism to 
me most of dinner without throwing any fresh light on the 
position. The Serbian Minister does not believe in any 
serious trouble ahead in his part of the world, but says 
that they will want ten years to settle their own internal 
affairs which are difficult owing to the intransigence of the 
Croat peasant party who want autonomy. But he says 
that the cleavage in Jugo-Slavia is, with this exception, not 
that of nationalities fortunately, but of political colour, 
i.e., radicals, democrats, socialists, communists, etc. He 
says that the study of a State in a condition of gradual 
formation is a most interesting one. A bluff, hearty, 
boisterous, clever old bandit with a strong face. So differ- 
ent from Greeks like M. Melas, impeccable in dress and 
diplomatic in conversation. 

Sunday, January 30, 1921. Saw M. Robert de Billy, 
the French Minister, at the French Legation at 11 a.m. A 
pleasant, well-informed, and cultivated man, Granville's 
most intimate colleague. He has the usual tendency of 
intellectuals to scepticism and sarcasm. We discussed art 
first and then came to politics. He thought that Venize- 
los's fall was due to his own failings. He had great ability, 
but was always in the clouds, had a board-school child's 
notions of finance, and let others carry on the internal 
policy while he was interesting himself in the big questions 
of foreign policy. Venizelos well knew that he would some 
day have to carry out a huge programme of internal re- 
form after he had got his New Greece. The country was 
in a bad state administratively, and an immense work 
awaited the new Government. Venizelos had carried on 
by his subordinates a system of tyranny which had proved 
his ruin. It could be excused during the war, but not after 
it. He admitted that the Greeks could smash the Turks, 
but did not see what the limit of their action could be. 
He did not much believe in the barrier of Turks against 



VIEWS OF M. DE BILLY 49 

Bolshevism. He did not think Rhallys would be a success 
at the coming Conference, but heard that he wished 
Politis to join him. As Politis was Venizelos's right-hand 
man this would displease the Monarchists, but certainly 
if Politis came he had the faculty of presenting a case well, 
with all the facts marshalled. Perhaps old Rhallys wished 
to implicate Politis in a failure. I do not think that de 
Billy much approves of certain action taken here. He 
knows too much of Greece, and says that the big people 
think that by saying a thing is to be, it will be, whereas 
it will not so be in Greece. The psychology of the Greeks 
was very special. They ruled their Government and were 
not ruled by it, as France and England were. The Greeks 
still regarded the world as made up of Greeks and Bar- 
barians and thought it a condescension when they said 
that Greece was with this Power or that. They were 
astounded when they found that this Power was not with 
them. The Greeks were very subtle and trained to poli- 
tics from infancy. They ate, drank, thought, and dreamed 
politics. When Rhallys came to apologise to Madame 
Politis for having her windows broken, the lady said to her 
boy of six how nice it was for a Prime Minister to have 
taken such a step. " Pish ! It was only a phrase," scoffed the 
infant. We thought that Kemal would not come to Lon- 
don, but might send a man who would probably not dare 
to return to Angora if he failed, as he would probably get 
his throat cut. So he would probably remain in London. 

De Billy seemed to have no idea of the death of French 
prestige here, but I did not allude to it. It is certainly not 
his doing. He was all for the renewal of relations with the 
King, as the other Allied Ministers are. He was not in the 
least contemptuous of the Greeks and showed sympathy 
with them. He ought to go to the Conference. 

Went to say good-bye to the King. I thanked him for 
all the facilities that had been given me. We discussed 
the Greek delegation to London and agreed that Rhallys 
was too old and would provoke impatience. I thought 
Gounaris, Maximos, and Pallis the best team to help 



50 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

Lloyd George. The King agreed, but said that Rhallys 
might have to go. He would arrange w ith Gounaris that 
the latter should take the lead. I told him of the ill-feeling 
against Gounaris in certain Allied countries, but said that 
I thought Gounaris would live down this feeling if he went, 
and that one could not exclude the real Prime Minister 
and leader of the strongest party in the Chambers. It 
seemed to me idiotic from all points of view. The King 
now thought that they could carry on until March finan- 
cially. He shares the views of Pallis about Asia Minor. 
He ended by saying that even if the Greeks were ordered 
out of Asia Minor, they might refuse to give way to any- 
thing but force. 

Lunched with M. Montagna and his wife, the Italian 
Military Attache, called San Martino, and one or two 
more. Montagna said before lunch, when we were alone, 
that some British reports which he had seen showed an 
extraordinary variation between the different estimates 
of Kemal's force. One report gave his figures to be 180,000 
and another report under 20,000. I told him of our expe- 
riences in Afghanistan, and thought that large numbers 
might turn up for a battle, but would go home after a few 
days. Neither Montagna nor de Billy has really explained 
to me what their countries want. "Pacification and ex- 
ploitation" are the watchwords of both, but as these mean 
pacification by giving the Turks Smyrna as a pourboire, 
and the exploitation of the Turks afterwards, it does not 
mend matters, nor much advance them. 

Said good-bye to Princesses Andrew and Christopher. 
Saw Granville at four o'clock. 

Mercati came and told me, to my surprise, that I had 
suggested that the Queen should see Admiral Kelly and 
that she had said that she wished to do so to talk about 
Prince Paul who was a Naval cadet. I told Mercati that 
I had not suggested this to Queen Sophie, but had merely 
said that the Queen would like him if she saw him. Re- 
ported this to Granville and the Admiral in order to avoid 
any misunderstanding. 



FINAL DINNER WITH M. GOUNARIS 51 

M. Gounaris called for me at 8.30, and motored me down 
to dine at Phaleron, where we hoped to be quiet. But we 
found a dance going on, and all the youths and maidens 
trooped in to talk to Gounaris as the custom is. The 
girls are particulariy fond of him, it seems, because he 
has promised female suffrage. We got rid of them all at 
last and had a good talk. Gounaris went at some length 
with Venizelos's persecutions, which were really intoler- 
able. It was a species of terror. No one could call his 
soul his own, and everyone was always liable to find him- 
self arrested during the night. The people did not rise 
because Venizelos had force on his side, but they bided 
their time for the vote. The outside world knew nothing 
of what had been going on. The Press was fed by Ven- 
izelos, and the few voices of the exiles were regarded as 
tendencious. Anyone would have made the same mistake 
as our diplomacy and Press made, for the Venizelists took 
charge of all foreigners and fed them upon lies. The Greek 
people had been very moderate in victory. No spirit of 
personal vengeance inspired them, and they only wished 
to forget the past. We had a long talk about the whole 
political and military situation, but I got back too late 
and start too early to-morrow to jot it all down. 

Monday, January 31, 1921. Motored to the Piraeus 
with Rangabe and embarked on the Bucovina, a little 
Lloyd-Triestine boat of some three thousand tons. A slow 
boat, very full: three in a cabin. Prince Andrew came on 
board on his way to Corfu. Played Bridge most of the 
night to avoid going to my cabin. My stable companions 
were asleep when I went down. Opened the porthole and 
so slept well. When I woke up, I saw two faces in the 
other bunks the living images of Potash and Perlmutter — • 
shining, oily, and genial, but hating the open porthole 
like the devil. 

Tuesday, February 1, 1921. A very lovely journey yes- 
terday and to-day through the islands and the Corinth 
Canal. Reached Corfu about two o'clock. What wonder- 
ful lights and soft colour effects! Prince Andrew invited 



52 THE RETURN OF KING CONSTANTINE 

me ashore to see his house and the last British Governor's 
old palace. A launch came for him. We tossed up and 
down in going ashore. A crowd of people received the 
Prince very well. We motored together to Mon Repos, a 
charming old Georgian house about two miles away, with 
fine views over the bay. He took me over the house. A lot 
of harm done during his enforced absence since 1916 — 
much wet come in and roof wants repairing, but it is a 
most charming place and only wants a little money to be 
spent on house and garden to be an ideal winter resort. 
The house in very good style, and might have been taken 
bodily out of some English county about 1780. Prince 
Andrew then drove me to the Governor's palace which has 
been left exactly as it was when the last English Governor 
left it, in 1863 I think. We did things well in the eight- 
eenth and early nineteenth centuries. Possibly there was 
less supervision from home. All in the best Georgian style, 
and all the furniture, decorations, portraits, etc., left ex- 
actly as they were under the English rule. The result is a 
perfectly ideal old Georgian model with nothing out of 
taste. The Hall of St. George in the centre of the first floor 
very fine. The entrance hall most dignified. A throne 
room with a throne chair at one end, with the English 
Crown still on the chair — three circular steps up to it. 
Full-length portraits all round, including one of George 
IV, and allegorical pictures of St. George. In the Council 
Room are portraits of distinguished Corfu statesmen. 
What a heavenly country house this would make in Eng- 
land! The name of the man who designed and decorated 
this place should be preserved. He was an artist. In one 
of the bedrooms used by the late King of Greece is a ward- 
robe with a looking-glass on which there are the signatures 
of distinguished visitors. The German Kaiser's signature 
is among them, written with a diamond ring, I suppose. 

The launch took me back. It was rough, and we had 
been tossed about like a cork on landing. The gratitude of 
the stout Greek oflScer sent to escort me was comic when I 
took leave of him at the landing-stage, and did not ask 



CORFU 53 

him to accompany me on the journey to the ship again. 
An acrobatic feat to jump on the companion ladder as the 
launch danced up and down. Transferred to Prince An- 
drew's cabin and was alone there. 



CHAPTER III 
ROME AND PARIS 

Consul-General Eyres — The British Embassy — The Fascisti and the 
hotel strike — An official dinner — Some Roman beauties — Another talk 
with M. Barr^re — Princess Jane di San Faustino — Princess Radziwill — 
Another conversation with Count Sforza — His success at Paris — His 
views on Greeks and Turks — The London Conference — The Italians and 
the Czechs in agreement — Sir George Buchanan on Russia — M. Benes 
makes a favourable impression at Rome — Good influence of Count Sforza 
— Miss Buchanan's " City of Trouble " — Leave for Paris — Thoughts on 
Italy — A conversation with Marshal Petain — A talk over Asia Minor — 
Strong position of the French Army in Europe — A conversation with M. 
Venizelos — His strenuous work for Greece in London — He will never 
work with the King — Herodotus and the Greeks — Visit to Prince and 
Princess George of Greece at St. Cloud — Hopes in the French — Views on 
events — Visit to M. Philippe Berthelot — Reparations and Greece — A 
fair deal between France and England — Bismarck on the value of a man — 
A talk with M. Briand — He wishes to withdraw the French troops from 
Cilicia — The lies about Greece — M. Briand has reached the limit of con- 
cessions to Germany — The French Chambers a difficult team to handle — 
Bonaparte and Briand — Lady Millicent Hawes — Return to London. 

Wednesday, February 2, 1921. Reached Brindisi 7 a.m. — a 
long wait till 6.30 p.m. when I took train for Rome. Mr. 
Eyres, late Consul-General at Constantinople, and Cap- 
tain Mars, King's Messenger, lunched with me. Eyres's 
knowledge of the Eastern Mediterranean most valuable. 
He is a perfect mine of information. 

Thursday, February 3, 1921. Arrived at Rome at 10 a.m. 
' and found that Sir George Buchanan and Lady Georgina 
were expecting me to stay at the Embassy. All the hotel 
servants are on strike and the Fascisti are assisting in the 
waiting and house-maiding, so the haven by the Porta 
Pia was a godsend, especially with such a charming host 
and hostess. I found myself in a lovely room overlooking 
the garden with bathroom and sitting-room attached. 
After lunch took a drive with Lady Georgina and Sir 
George, and we visited various places of interest and sev- 
eral curio shops. They both have fine taste in old and 
beautiful things. Sir George rather fussed by Itahan 



SOME ROMAN BEAUTIES 55 

press attacks on us, and German propaganda strongly 
suspected. The Popolo Romano the chief offender. 

In the evening a big dinner of twenty-six, including 
Count Sforza and his Countess and a lot of pretty women 
and their husbands, including the magnificent Duchess of 
Sermoneta, the Torlonias, the Odescalchis — she was 
Dora Rudini, Labby's daughter, and retains her looks — 
Princess Radziwill, very brilliant, and various others. 
Took in Princess Radziwill and found her as good com- 
pany as ever and in great looks. Had a good talk with 
Count Sforza after dinner and found in him the same 
spirit of conciliation and broad statesmanship which have 
won him such renown of late. He was wearing the Annun- 
ciata, the great Order of the old House of Savoy, which 
gives him precedence over all but Royal Princes and 
makes him the cousin of the King. We agreed to meet 
again before I left. Then talked to M. Caramelos, late 
Greek Minister here, who had come without his beautiful 
wife, to our regret. He is in bad odour in Athens for hav- 
ing advised the King to resign in favour of the Crown 
Prince. 

Friday, February 4, 1921. Have begun my articles on 
Greece and they keep me busy. Another tour by car in the 
afternoon with Her Excellency and Edward Cunard who 
is here on a visit. Later went to see M. Barrere, the French 
Ambassador, and told him the results of my trip to Greece 
which were not calculated to cause him much joy. We had 
a long talk about it all. I told him frankly what I thought, 
but he could not give me the French policy for Greece and 
I am in some doubt whether he or anyone even in Paris 
has one. 

It struck me, on second thoughts, that the eighteenth- 
century tapestries and other joys are out of keeping with 
the fifteenth-century Farnese Palace, which demands 
sterner furniture and decorations. The Farnese is most 
magnificent, but our Embassy is a better house for the 
purposes of diplomacy and garden parties, and much 
more habitable. I am told that we might have bought the 



56 ROME AND PARIS 

Barberini Palace at the time for the same sum. It would 
have been fine for official receptions and a most profitable 
investment as it contains about five sets of apartments, 
each good enough for a Legation at least. Still, taking one 
thing with another, I like our Embassy best of all. 

Saturday, February 5, 1921. Worked, and then went to 
Princess Jane di San Faustino's for lunch. We were alone 
and had a great talk over the affairs of Greece and Italy. 
She is in the Barberini Palace, and has some large and 
beautiful rooms with suitable furniture. A large fountain 
in her dining-room lit up by light from below. She told me 
of the troubles in the Fiat Works which her son-in-law and 
his father control, and of all the difficulties of Italy, house- 
keeping, etc. Later it was scandals, the crew of Taormina, 
etc. A very pleasant, clever, and well-informed woman 
who is one of the stars of Rome. A most amusing talk over 
the Roman personalities of the day, and their loves and 
troubles. She says that Italians think of nothing but love. 

Went to the Russian ballet in the evening. 

Sunday, February 6, 1921. Worked, and then lunched 
with Princess Radziwill and a pleasant party of Prince 
Ruspoli and some nice Americans. She told us of her 
party last night with M. Scaletti, who had given out that 
he meant to invite the twelve prettiest women in Rome 
and the twelve smartest young men. They included the 
Sermoneta Duchess, of course, the Radziwill and Odescal- 
chi beauties, Mrs. Grant, Eddy Wortley's lovely girl, the 
Medici beauty, and several more. Maurice Pernot came 
to see me and I presented him to the Buchanans. Pernot 
always delights me. He is so broad, and so cultivated. 

Monday, February 7, 1921. Went to the Consulta and 
had an hour's talk with Count Sforza, the Foreign Minis- 
ter, with a view to discovering what Italy really wanted 
to change in the Treaty of Sevres, and what line Sforza 
meant to take in London. I congratulated him on his 
action at Paris the other day in bringing M. Briand and 
Lloyd George together. He said that the first day was 
very stormy and that there was some difficulty in arrang- 



COUNT SFORZA AT PARIS 57 

ing matters. I asked how it was that Briand did not know 
of the arrangement made at Boulogne. Why had not 
Berthelot informed Briand? Sforza said laughingly that 
there were some diplomatic mysteries into which one did 
best not to look too closely. Then we agreed that for a 
man of the world to be Foreign Minister was an advantage 
to a country, and he told me how he had realised what 
modern democracy had lost by not comprehending this. 

Turning to the Greeks, and after a long discussion, in 
which I told him my views, he said that life must be made 
more endurable for Turkey, and he evidently wished that 
Thrace should be restored to Turkey, leaving to Greece 
a "privileged economic situation" there. He also still 
wants to treat with the Turks and use them against the 
Bolshevists, and he explained his view of the future danger 
presented by Russia, and his regret that Lloyd George 
paid so little attention to it. Sforza thought that Greece 
aimed at Constantinople, as of course she does. He told 
me that Kemal's representative was coming to the London 
Conference via Adalia. I told him my views. He seemed 
particularly impressed by my argument that the Treaties 
were the public law of Europe, and that if we began tinker- 
ing and altering them, we should have no peace. He agreed 
that Kemal was no good, but did not think that the Greeks 
could stand the strain for long. I told him that the Greek 
Army controlled the situation in Asia Minor and that a 
Turkish stick to beat Bolshevism would prove a broken 
reed, but that we must keep our international garrison at 
Constantinople because no better solution presented itself. 
Personally, I was for the Treaty and all the Treaty. Those 
who wanted it changed should say precisely how they 
wanted it changed, not vaguely, but in set terms. 

Sforza is undoubtedly all for peace and reconciliation, 
but with economic benefits for Italy to follow. He is not 
prepared to send an army to Turkey or anywhere else. He 
has seen M. Benes, the Foreign Minister of the Czecho- 
slovaks (de Salis distinguishes the two new States as the 
Checks and the Jugs), and both Sforza and Sir George 



58 ROME AND PARIS 

Buchanan agree in stating that Italy and the Czechs are 
agreed on political, economic, and commercial policy. So 
Sforza says that there is no need for a Treaty, and Italy 
will not at present join the Little Entente. But undoubt- 
edly Sforza will press for the revision of the Sevres Treaty. 
Three Allies and three policies! Therefore nothing doing, 
and a general muddle! 

I saw M. Metaxas later in the day and he is ciphering to 
Athens my news about Sforza's and Lloyd George's ap- 
proval of the recognition of the King, and about Sforza's 
view, also expressed to me, that no Greek should be placed 
on the Index at the Conference on account of his supposed 
unpopularity with the Allies. Sforza preferred, he told me, 
to meet such men, and especially leaders like Gounaris, 
face to face, and to find out if and where we differed from 
them. He was not for harassing the Greeks by excluding 
their leading men. Metaxas told me that Rhallys had been 
replaced by Calogheropoulos as Premier, which pleased 
me. He also said that the Greek papers were all full of 
my doings in Greece, and recorded my every movement. 
Lucky that there was no Maid of Athens on my list ! Byron 
was in luck. He lived before journalism. How amusing it 
is, by the way, that the only Greek line in Byron is un- 
grammatical ! The result of a Harrow education, no doubt. 
I was also much amused in Greece to hear that at the last 
Olympic Games we sent our choicest Greek scholars, and 
that they made flowery speeches in their best Greek and 
no one understood a single word of them! 

The Kennards and Mr. McClure dined at the Embassy, 
and Mr. Philip. McClure and I discussed the Times who 
have discharged him, though he has an almost unsur- 
passed knowledge of Italy. 

Tuesday, February 8, 1921. A talk with the Ambassador 
in the morning. He told me that Benes thinks that the 
Bolshevists will break up in the spring, or at all events this 
year, and that their rule will be succeeded by five years of 
anarchy. He expects the Social Revolutionaries to upset 
them, but Sir George does not believe in them and says 



GOOD INFLUENCE OF COUNT SFORZA 59 

that some of them are as bad as the Bolshies. A talk of 
Siberia declaring autonomy. Sforza told me yesterday 
that Benes feared an attack by the Bolshies on Poland 
formerly, but now does not credit it. But he and Sforza 
think an attack on Roumania possible. 

It occurs to me that Sforza cannot carry far his views 
about taking Thrace from Greece, since Bulgaria re- 
nounced in favour of Greece all her rights in Thrace under 
Article 42 of the Treaty of Neuilly, which has been ratified 
and is in operation. We are surely not going to upset a 
second Treaty' 

Note that Benes has created a very favourable impres- 
sion here and is much liked both by Sforza and Sir George. 
I think that Sforza is a man who realises that his task is 
the restoration of the peace and the unity of Europe. His 
optimism in foreign policy is less a mask than the real 
nature of the man. His main practical aim is to pacify 
Europe while securing economic profit for Italy. He will 
always oppose a Greek occupation of Constantinople, and 
considers Russia a real menace, or pretends to do so. His 
head is cool and he regards politics without passion. He 
may not be a Bismarck, but a Bismarck would be highly 
inconvenient just now. I think that Sforza adds some- 
thing to the moral forces of our post-war world. But I dis- 
agree with his Greek policy all the same. I told him of the 
petition from Rhodes, but on Sir George Buchanan's ad- 
vice did not show him the text, as the language was rather 
strong. McClure, and M. Gallenga, a Deputy, lunched at 
the Embassy to-day — Gallenga told numerous stories. 
One of Clemenceau after Deschanel's accident: "I was not 
made President because I was too old. But I got as far as 
the third cataract, and Deschanel could not get as far as 
Montelimar." 

Finished reading Miss M. Buchanan's book on Russia 
called "The City of Trouble." A charming and pathetic 
little volume, well written and deeply interesting. A very 
nice girl with a real good heart. Walked round the garden 
with His Excellency in the morning. Admired the ilexes 



60 ROME AND PARIS 

and the Aurellan wall from the top of which there is still a 
jBne glimpse of the distant mountains, though part is now 
shut out by new buildings. 

Left 3.30 P.M. for Paris, carrying a Foreign Office Bag 
with me. M. Metaxas came to bid me good-bye at the 
station and gave me his latest news. Said good-bye to the 
Buchanans with real regret. Most kind and hospitable 
people who make all who visit them feel happy and at 
home. I delight to see an Embassy kept up in the style 
and dignity of the old days, as this is. Sir George exactly 
the man for Italy. 

I see that I have not referred to the Fascisti. These are 
a strike-breaking anti-Bolshevist organization composed 
mostly of the young men of the better classes who turn out 
like special constables to keep order, and to keep things 
going in factories, hotels, etc., when workmen strike. 
They have arms — so have the workmen. Giolitti's aim is 
to disarm both. The Fascisti are popular with the proper- 
tied classes. So are Nitti's Guardia Regia of old N.C.O.'s 
and soldiers, a body which must be very numerous now. 

Rome to-day and a month ago has been full of these men 
and of soldiers who are seen in courtyards everywhere as if 
trouble were expected. But I see no reason to change my 
view that Italy is over the worst of her internal troubles, 
even if the people are not yet all setting resolutely to work 
except in the south, and even if there are still too many 
loafers about the streets. Emigration has again become a 
safety valve, and the figures are growing yearly, though as 
yet only a third of the immense pre-war figures. The 
trans-oceanic emigration is still to the United States, 
Argentina, and Brazil in the main, while France takes 
most emigrants in Europe and Germany not one thousand 
a year yet. I am told that in normal past times the amount 
of money sent home by Italian emigrants amounted to a 
million dollars a day, and that the majority come home 
after eight to twelve years abroad when they become part 
of the small-propertied bourgeois class, which must be 
essentially anti-Bolshevist. 



THOUGHTS ON ITALY 61 

A difl5culty is that the people of Italy have given up 
eating maize which Italy produces, and have taken to 
wheat of which Italy can produce very little. Wheat and 
coal are Italy's main needs, but iron and steel and all 
kinds of raw materials not produced in Italy are greatly 
needed, and are difficult to buy from countries with higher 
rates of exchange. What has happened to macaroni I 
don't know. It can scarcely be bought. 

Arrived Paris 10.30 p.m. — two hours behind time. 
Took the F.O. Bag to the Embassy and found a room at 
the Ritz. 

PARIS BEFORE THE LONDON CONFERENCES 

Thursday, February 10, 1921. Walked to the Embassy 
and found that Lord Hardinge was in London for his son's 
marriage. Sir Milne Cheetham, Minister and acting tem- 
porarily for Hardinge, saw off Lord Curzon to London on 
the return of the latter from the Riviera and then came to 
lunch. He told me how affairs were going on here and I 
told him of affairs in Greece and Rome for him to pass on 
to Hardinge. Cheetham no more able to define French 
wishes in the East than I am, but he has only been here a 
month, and I must try to see the French F.O. people. We 
had a good talk. Hardinge took no part in the Conference 
at Paris. Lloyd George stayed at the Crillon, and Curzon 
at the Ritz. 

The arrangements made by the Allies for the disarma- 
ment of Germany and reparations are provoking intense 
fury in Germany, and we shall see how things go in the 
London Conference of February 28 after the Eastern Con- 
ference. 

Saw M. Metaxas, Charge d'Affaires of Greece here. 
The press gives the names of the Greek delegation under 
Calogheropoulos which comes here next Monday. No 
mention of Gounaris nor of Pallis yet, but Sterghiadis, the 
competent Governor of Smyrna, said to be coming, and 
Maximos. Metaxas confirms my news that Venizelos is 
working hard here and in London for the Treaty, but also 



62 ROME AND PARIS 

against the King. Metaxas finds that the French Foreign 
Office is not glad to see him, and fob him off as best they 
can. He tells me that he published in certain French 
papers the gist of the private wire I sent through the 
Greek Foreign Office to Lord Burnham. Metaxas said 
that part of it appeared in the Daily Telegraph. 

Went to see Marshal Petain at five o'clock at the Boule- 
vard des Invalides. Found him looking well and stouter 
than during the war. He was in civilian kit. We had a 
good talk about the war in Asia Minor over the map. I 
noticed that the figure of Kemal's forces was placed at 
63,000.? and the Turkish "Army of the East" on the side 
of Armenia at 36,000? (Both figures had a query after 
them.) I told him the Greek estimate, and their assurance 
of success. I also told him that if the Greeks were ordered 
out of Asia Minor the Constantinople position would be 
uncovered, and the French in Cilicia liable to be over- 
whelmed. He agreed, and after a long talk we thought 
that the only solution was for Greece and the rest of us to 
hold our present positions, and that if any change were to 
be made, it should be made by kicking the Turks out of 
Constantinople. He said that he had four French divi- 
sions in Cilicia; they were bad troops, mostly black, and 
were hard-pressed by the bands attacking them. But as he 
was speaking an officer came in to report the capture of 
Aintab, and Petain was pleased and said that it was an 
important place with 70,000 inhabitants. 

Petain was quite unaware of the reasons for the fall of 
Venizelos, and was much interested in my explanations of 
them. He thought the whole problem of Constantinople, 
the Powers, the Greeks, and the Turks extremely involved, 
and that no solution presented itself. He did not want 
Russians or Greeks at Constantinople. An international 
garrison, and elsewhere for all the Allies to hold what they 
had, seemed best. That is precisely what I think. 

He said that the French Army was all right, that the 
mobilisation was all worked out, and that they could place 
sixty divisions in the field immediately. He thought the 



CONVERSATION WITH M. VENIZELOS 63 

Chambers aggressive, and that the country would follow 
them to a man if it were a question of making the Boche 
pay. 

Petain thought that we should occupy and exploit the 
Rhineland first, and if taking it over and taxing it were of 
no avail, we should send the whole German population 
over the Rhine and replace it by the French mutiles de 
guerre. This plan was similar to the German plans for 
Northern France which the French had discovered, but 
had not yet published. They would do so when the time 
came, to show that they were taking a leaf out of a German 
book. 

Friday, February 11, 1921. Lunched with M. Metaxas 
and his wife and a party of Greeks. Not much fresh news. 

M. Venizelos came at five o'clock to my rooms and 
talked till 6.15. I began by telling him that I did n.ot wish 
to talk to him under false pretences: that I did not agree 
with his internal policy and proposed to say what I 
thought about it, but that I wished to help to save his 
Treaty with which I was heartily in accord in common 
with the whole of Greece. He told me that before I judged 
his internal policy, I should hear his side, which I offered to 
do when he pleased, but we agreed that the Treaty was the 
main thing for the moment, and he declares that he has 
been working strenuously for it here and in London, and is 
well content with his talks in London with politicians, and 
newspaper people, including Burnham, who had, he says, a 
good article last Tuesday, and undertakes to support his 
point of view. Times, Daily News, Westminster Gazette^ 
Chronicle, and Manchester Guardian, all coming into line. 

As to the King, Venizelos thinks that Serbia will never 
forgive him for betraying her, and he fears that Serbia and 
Bulgaria may some day unite to crush Greece. But he 
regards the King as an episode, and expects him to die 
before Germany and her recent satellites recover. He will 
never work with the King, and was perfectly decided that 
it was wholly impossible. 

I asked about the promise said to have been given by 



64 ROME AND PARIS 

Lloyd George to lend Greece 3| millions a month while 
the operations continued. Venizelos said that there was no 
formal promise, but that on one occasion he had put for- 
ward a Greek occupation of Constantinople, which he did 
not press, and a Greek enclave on the Black Sea about 
Trebizond where there was a large Greek population, and 
a loan of 3| millions a month. He said that Lloyd George 
described this latter as perfectly reasonable, but beyond 
that he did not go. As to the Treaty, we were perfectly in 
accord on all points, and I see no reason to alter the five 
articles which I have now completed on the future of 
Greece. Nearly all my arguments he repeated word for 
word. He traced the lying reports in the French press to 
the agents of a certain bank who were working in the in- 
terests of the Turks. There are a lot of Frenchmen on the 
Board. He thought that people were greatly impressed 
because he, Venizelos, though fallen, was supporting the 
Greek cause. He thought with me that the Conference 
might fail, since we could not compromise if the French 
and Italians maintained their positions. We should then 
all go on as we were, and the Treaty would remain, even if 
unratified. 

He said the Versailles men had placed the force to hold 
the Greek Zone in Asia Minor at three divisions when 
peace was made, and thought that Greece could find these 
from her normal peace effectives and volunteers. She 
would help in the gendarmerie to be created under the 
Treaty, and he was for evicting the Turk from Constan- 
tinople. 

I asked about a limit to the Greek offensive. He 
thought that the Baghdad railway line should be the 
limit, with Angora. 

He said that the Greek birth-rate meant a population of 
thirty millions by the end of the century, and declared 
that with the present population she could find a million 
soldiers. I told him my view, i.e., that we were going back 
to Herodotus, and showed him the map in Bury of the 
Greek settlement in Asia Minor about 500 B.C. He was 



PRINCE GEORGE OF GREECE 65 

interested and said that the same thing had gone on later, 
and that the coast always became Greekicised, no matter 
what was done. 

He was looking very fit — rather stouter than when we 
last met, while he seemed to have a fuller beard. I scarcely 
recognised him when he came, but he has not lost his old 
volubility and fire, and poured out a lava of words. 

Went off to St. Cloud to dine with Prince and Princess 
George at their villa, 7 Rue Mont Valerien, across the 
Pont de Suresnes, up the Boulevard de Versailles to the 
Cafe de Vol d'Or, and then to the left. It takes a bit of 
finding in the dark. 

The Prince is more like the late King than the other 
brothers. The Princess is quite a character, literary in her 
tastes, has written a book of which she gave me a copy 
with a nice inscription — "Souvenir d'une fidele lectrice," 
and is rather more than nice-looking and very intelligent. 
Prince Waldemar of Denmark also there and a daughter of 
the House, besides another lady whose name I did not 
catch. I found Prince George on the high horse about 
Venizelos, and much montS against poor Granville whom I 
had to defend once more, and against the English for not 
supporting the Greeks with gifts of money. His hatred of 
Venizelos dates from Cretan days when he said that Veni- 
zelos betrayed him. He and the Princess very hopeful 
about Briand. They felt assured that he would support 
Greece. Prince George had also heard that a certain bank 
had paid for the recent lies about Greece, and said that a 
paper which has been unusually bitter had received 2,500,- 
000 francs ! He also named the sum, fantastic it sounded, 
which had been paid out of the Greek revenues to suborn a 
certain press before the late elections. He confirmed the 
story of Venizelos, Prince Alexander, and Smyrna. An 
amusing talk after dinner. The Princess subtle, elusive, and 
the best of company. Briand telephoned to me to-day, by 
the way, that he would be out of Paris till Monday, so I 
think I will not wa't for him, especially as I shall see 
Berthelot in the morning. 



66 ROME AND PARIS 

The house full of pictures collected by Prince George, 
while his collection of Napoleonic snuff-boxes looks par- 
ticularly interesting and valuable. A pleasant evening 
with amusing conversation. Prince George has been 
offered the throne of Hungary, but says the pheasant 
shooting is the only attraction that he would find there! 

Driving back to Paris found our bridge closed by gates 
and had to motor miles down-stream to another bridge 
to get across. Just like the French Jacks-in-Office ! Why 
close the gates at all.'' 

Saturday, February 12, 1921. To the Quai d'Orsay at 
11 A.M. I had a talk with Philippe Berthelot, who was 
very cordial, and we ran through the Greek question. 
After a little beating about the bush he told me exactly 
what I wanted to know, namely, that France was chiefly 
interested in the German reparation question and we in 
the Greco-Turkish one. We had given Briand a definite 
undertaking to support him in the reparation question, 
and France was, therefore, prepared to adopt our views 
about Greece. Berthelot even hoped that Lloyd George 
would decide to tenir le baton du chef d'orchestre on the 
21st. I said that it was curious that I had Just written in 
the same sense to Lord Burnham, and as this was Berthe- 
lot's view I would not detain him longer, for it was exactly 
what I felt myself about it all. I need not bother about 
Italy, he said, for when France and England were agreed, 
the Italians always kept silence. He rather sneered at my 
praise of Sforza, and thought him a ladies' man and a 
diplomat de salon. He paid a high tribute to Benes whom 
he thought far superior. He told me that Bismarck had 
once observed that to weigh the value of a man one 
should subtract his vanity, and then see what is left after- 
wards. But Sforza has no vanity! How has he got across 
Berthelot.? I did not like to ask about Briand's igno- 
rance in Paris the other day of the Boulogne arrangement. 
Berthelot was sure that the Boches would give way about 
reparations if the Allies remained firm and united, but 
they would only give way at the very end when they 



TALK WITH M. BRIAND 67 

were convinced that we were all in earnest, and not 
before. 

Berthelot then rang to see if Briand had gone out, and 
finding that he had not, I went down and was shown in 
without delay. After some mutual compliments, Briand, 
who was looking very well, asked for my news from Greece 
and I told him my conclusions. He seemed to agree en- 
tirely with Petain's and my point of view about the danger 
of making the Greeks quit, and said that the real wish of 
France was to be able to take away her troops from Cilicia 
where they number 60,000 and are costing a great deal of 
money. I spoke about the lies published in the French 
press about the Greeks and asked why he did not stop 
them as he must know their provenance as well as I did. 
He said that he had stopped a great many. He was all for 
the recognition of the King and for ending the comedy of 
the sulking Allied Ministers, as Berthelot was, but could 
not say if it could be done before the Greek-Roumanian 
marriages. 

I told him of the loss of French prestige in Greece and 
thought that it could be restored if France acted reason- 
ably. All that he said about Greece, her future, and the 
Conference, led me to think that he did not mean to take 
a line strongly opposed to ours, but he certainly spoke 
openly for the revision when the last Conference took 
place in Paris, and I do not quite see how he can change 
his note now. 

He said that he had gone to the utmost limit of con- 
cession about reparations from Germany, and could not 
proceed an inch further without being abandoned by the 
Chambers. The Chambers were full of young men from 
the war, and were a difficult team to handle. If the Boches 
would not agree to our terms, all France would march and 
sanctions would be imposed. I said that France had the 
only great Army in Europe now, and that I was very glad 
not to find Bonaparte sitting in Briand's chair, for the con- 
quest of Europe would seem easy to him. Briand said that 
such ideas were far from him, and I replied that I was sure 



68 ROME AND PARIS 

of it. I then rose and took leave, and he asked me to see 
him in London when he came over. 

Went to lunch early with Lady Millicent Hawes, for- 
merly the Duchess of Sutherland, and her new husband 
Colonel Hawes, a very pleasant and nice-looking fellow. 
They both seem very happy and have a very nice flat 
overlooking a garden. He is employed at Furness's ship- 
ping business. They have taken a farm in the country, 
thirty miles east of Paris, and are doing it up. We had a 
good talk of events and people. 

Finished my series of Greek articles and sent them off. 
Dined with Captain and Mrs. Lock; he is the Daily Tele- 
graph man in Paris and is doing well. 

Sunday, February 13, 1921. Left by Boulogne 9.45 a.m. 
and crossed in the London, a good boat with all arrange- 
ments very perfect. I have never known our seas so calm 
in winter before as this year. 

Reached London 6.30 p.m. 



CHAPTER IV 

CONFERENCES, SANCTIONS, AND PLEBISCITES 

The London Conference of February 21 — The Eastern Question and Rep- 
arations — Leave for Paris — The French position — Diisseldorf occupied 

— Marshal P6tain's views — M. Herbette's opinions — The Abb^ Sieyes 
on Germans and victory — General Buat and Lord Hardinge prefer a block- 
ade to sanctions — M. Barthou on events — A conversation with M. Andr^ 
Lefevre — The Ruhr plus blockade — Economic sanctions — A lunch with 
Marshal Petain — Some shooting stories — I go to Cologne — General 
Masterman on aircraft control in Germany — General NoUet on the mili- 
tary position in Germany — War material not delivered up — Mr. Julian 
Piggott on the economic sanctions — A visit to Diisseldorf, Ruhrort, and 
Duisburg — General Gaucher — Berlin — Views of om* Embassy — Bres- 
lau — "The Victors" — Journey to Oppeln, Upper Silesia — General Le 
Rond — M. F. Bourdillon — Views of various Allied authorities — Motor 
tours round the Plebiscite area — Major Robin Gray — Colonel Wauchope's 
brigade — The industrial triangle — Voting day, March 20 — M. Korfanty 

— Germans win at Oppeln — Enthusiasm — Rough returns of the voting — 
Facts and figures about the mining area — Major R. W. Clarke, R.E. — 
Motor to Breslau — Prince and Princess Bliicher — Their views on Ger- 
many — Major Piper on his control work — The English and the French 
mentality — I am robbed at Breslau — Journey to Prague — The Germans 
to-day. 

London, Friday, March 4, 1921. We have had a fortnight 
of Conferences here, the first over the Treaty of Sevres 
with Greeks and Turks to the forefront, and the second 
over reparations with the Germans. In the first Confer- 
ence the French did not support us, as I had been led to 
beheve they would, and Italy maintained her opposition 
to the Greek claims. L. G. took no strong line, and eventu- 
ally, at Turkish initiative, it was resolved to ask Greeks 
and Turks whether they would consent to the despatch of 
a Commission to Smyrna and Thrace to make fresh in- 
vestigations. The National Assembly at Athens promptly 
and unanimously refused. The Turks gave a conditional 
assent. An excellent chance of settling the question has 
thus apparently lapsed, but the decision of the Allies is 
not yet announced. 

Meanwhile there had begun on February 28 the investi- 
gation of the Reparations question. The Germans, led 



70 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

by Dr. von Simons, their Foreign Minister, put forward 
preposterous proposals amounting only to a fraction of 
our demands from them, and L. G. at once spoke to them 
severely about it. On Thursday, March 3, he made a de- 
tailed indictment of the German attitude and gave them 
till Monday, March 7, to accept the Paris decisions of 
January 29, or to produce equivalent proposals, failing 
which certain acts of constraint would be at once applied. 

Saturday, March 5, 1921. In view of these events I 
crossed the Channel to-day and came to Paris to be handy 
in case of trouble, and to escape any possible delays owing 
to curtailment of cross-Channel services if the Germans 
remain recalcitrant on Monday. 

I am very disappointed that we have not supported the 
Greeks and have observed such a coldly neutral attitude. 
I have seen much of their delegation in London. They are 
much disillusioned, though we must await the decision 
before anathematising L. G. and Curzon. It may be that 
Briand's political position rendered it inadvisable to con- 
clude the Eastern Question until the settlement had been 
made with the Germans. At all events L. G. has kept his 
word to the French even if they have not acted as Briand 
and Berthelot promised me they would. 

Sunday, March 6, 1921. A quiet day. Hardinge away 
at Biarritz till Wednesday. Cheetham laid up. Loch 
lunched with me and we had a good talk. Our view is that 
there will be a fresh attempt to-morrow to come to terms 
in London. We both dread the consequences of the famous 
"sanctions," not immediately, but in their ultimate re- 
sults, and we do not see how the measures proposed, i.e., 
occupation of Duisburg, Ruhrort, and Diisseldorf, will 
bring the Bodies to heel. Walked and left cards on Mar- 
shal Petain and his wife at 6, Square Latour-Maubourg. 
They were just going out for a drive, but the glimpse I 
had of her showed an agreeable and distinguished figure. 
Spent the day in studying all available French and Ger- 
man papers. The Boches seem to me as utterly unrepent- 
ant as they ever were, unready to acknowledge their re- 



THE FRENCH POSITION 71 

sponsibility for the war, neither wilhng to express regret 
nor to atone for all the miseries which they have brought 
upon the world, and as destitute of tact and feeling as of 
old. They are to some extent disarmed for the time, hav- 
ing given up or destroyed 35,000 guns and some 3| million 
rifles and so on, but under various disguises they keep up 
about a quarter of a million Reichswehr and Schiitzpolizei 
(late Sicherheiispolizei) , while there must be at least three 
to four million rifles unaccounted for and 10,000 machine 
guns. As there are still some six million trained men in 
Germany, a guerilla war is not an impossible contingency, 
and the German hatred of the French is intense. 

As for the French, they are as determined to exact full 
reparation for all their fearful sufferings as the Germans 
are to evade it. We have 100,000 French and British 
troops in the Rhineland, and there are the Belgians and 
Americans besides. We can spare but few more, as all our 
troops are either in Ireland or in occupation of conquered 
territories or plebiscite areas. We have no reserves to 
speak of and not 100,000 Territorials. In fact our military 
situation is much more abject than in 1914 except that we 
have a mass of war material rotting and rusting in store, 
and could, if the people were willing, call on our five mil- 
lion of trained men after furbishing up the Registration 
Act and reinstituting the Service Acts. But it would take 
a cataclysm to induce the politicians to consider such a 
thing, and the general public at home want no more fight- 
ing. The French seem ready for anything, but we know 
little of the real feeling of the mass of the French people, 
and I see already appeals to the communists and the pro- 
letariat of Europe to prevent the sanctions. The French 
think that they can carry out the first moves without 
mobilising. No doubt they can, but what with incidents, 
troubles, strikes, and so forth the future is obscure, and I 
should prefer to shut down the German frontiers to all 
trade and trust to blockade rather than to military meas- 
ures which may lead the French to Berlin, if not to Mos- 
cow. But this may not be the French view. I feel sure 



72 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

that Foch's desire for the military frontier of the Rhine 
remains unchanged. The French are not convinced that 
Germany is adequately crushed and prevented from reviv- 
ing. There is no real peace, only an enforced truce, and 
while we have broken up our old friend Austria we have 
made Germany more united than ever. So one must re- 
gard the general prospect as grave, and while admitting 
constraint to be indispensable one need not approve of the 
pending methods of applying it. A blockade is our most 
effective instrument, and it is better to take this course 
than to start out unconsciously on the road to Berlin. 

Dined at the Ritz Restaurant with Jemmy Durham, 
Lady Agnes, and Mr. Hankey. The old pre-war throng 
again and a dance afterwards. Lady A. and I watched the 
dancing for some time. The ladies had few clothes and 
none on their backs. We thought the whole proceedings 
undignified, indecent, and vulgar. We felt sick of this sort 
of thing which belongs to a dead past. Maurice Rothschild 
and Lady X skipping about like two-year-olds. The 
band was quite good and the new world seemed to be 
amusing itself in much the same way as a hundred years 
ago after the other great war in France. We felt very old- 
fashioned and out of date. The modern post-war public 
dance is the most blatantly vulgar and insolently indecent 
performance imaginable. The most suggestive stage danc- 
ing is prim in comparison. One can bear almost anything 
except lack of taste. The war seems to have killed off 
everyone except the vulgarians. 

Monday, March 7, 1921. We hear this morning that 
there was much hurrying and scurrying, lobbying and 
negotiating, till 2 a.m. this morning in London and that 
L. G. has produced a new proposal which is duly reported 
in the papers and frightens the French to death. Another 
division said to be going to the Rhine under Cavan in case 
of the sanctions. The French correspondents in London 
are evidently fearful that Briand may be forced to make 
some fresh concessions by L. G. and Sforza. In the after- 
noon late came the news that the Conference had broken 



MARSHAL PETAIN'S VIEWS 73 

down, and that there was an open rupture. The Boches 
had refused the L. G. compromise and had put the fat in 
the fire. I received a wire from Burnham asking me to go 
with the French and to send an appreciation. There has 
been a meeting of the Conseil Superieur de la Guerre to- 
day under M. Millerand, the President of the Repubhc. 

Tuesday, March 8, 1921. Went to see Petain this morn- 
ing. The Allies have not been long in applying the military 
sanctions. Dusseldorf was occupied peacefully this morn- 
ing at 6 A.M. and the other two towns later. Petain sarcas- 
tic about the whole proceeding. He expected nothing 
from the occupation. He thought that we had all been 
wasting our time in interminable discussions and that the 
desire to please the English had always held the French 
back. We should be made fools of, as usual. If the Boches 
said "y^s" we should go back, and when we were gone the 
Boches would say "no." Petain would prefer to occupy 
the territory necessary to bring the Boches to reason, 
would administer it and take its revenues, and would tell 
the Boches that he would stay there till all the debt was 
paid. He did not care whether it was five years, or thirty 
years, or fifty years. The Boches would have to pay before 
he left. I said that we had always spoken to one another 
very frankly during the war, and that I asked him now 
whether the French only wanted to make the Boches pay, 
or whether they had other and unavowed wishes. He as- 
sured me that they had no other visees, and that he knew 
the English distrusted them, but that they should have 
confidence in France. Drew blank at the French War 
Office. Barthou away and the whole place seemed quite 
deserted, so different from the war-time and the days of 
Clemenceau when the anterooms were always thronged. 
There was not one soul in them. Had a talk with M. Lad- 
mirault, the chief of Barthou's civil cabinet, a very nice 
fellow. Petain advises me not to go to the Rhine now as 
there is nothing to see, but to await events. M. Herbette, 
who writes the leaders on foreign policy in Le Temps, came 
and had a good talk. We think that the occupation will do 



74 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

no good, but that the customs duties may if generally 
applied, and we preferred that they should be applied 
all round Germany, and not upon one fraction of one fron- 
tier. Like Petain he favoured remaining till the Boches 
paid. 

I told him of my projected trip to Vienna, etc. I got out 
the map of post-war Europe and told him that I could find 
no policy in London on all this question. I wanted him to 
give me the French policy, or at least his own. He thought, 
like Petain, that we had made a bad peace, and regretted 
the break-up of Austria as I did. Czecho-Slovakia now 
stretched across to Europe and was like a cartridge of 
dynamite, hating everybody round them, but appearing to 
him more Slav and pro-Russian than anything else. Aus- 
tria was bound to go to Germany some day, and Germany 
would then extend over Hungary next. He thought the 
new Serb State had more possibilities than any other 
carved out of the old Austria. We agreed to differ about 
the Greeks. He thought that we were laying up great 
trouble for ourselves in future with Russia, owing to our 
backing of the Greeks and because of the little Baltic 
States which we had created. A revived Russia would 
sweep all this away. He was critical and suspicious of L. G. 
and was sarcastic about the manoeuvring in London last 
Sunday. Briand would certainly have been upset had the 
Boches accepted L. G.'s compromise, but fortunately they 
refused the terms. They were our wisest councillors, said 
M. Herbette. 

Went to see "Le Chasseur de chez Maxim" in the eve- 
ning. Very funny, but long, and the theatre very hot. 
Audience as scrubby as in London nowadays. Risky 
French plays are really rather harmless to English people, 
as so few know the argot of the fast sets or can follow the 
play upon words and all the nuances of the best French 
acting. These plays are written for Parisians and only 
Parisians can understand all the allusions. 

After reading masses of French papers, I find opinion 
wholly favours the present military sanctions, but not one 



TALK WITH LORD HARDINGE 75 

gives any reason for belief that they will make the Boches 
pay. 

Wednesday, March 9, 1921. All quiet on the Rhine. M. 
Dato, the Prime Minister of Spain, murdered. Distressed 
to hear of the serious illness of Princess Christopher. 
Wrote an article for the D. T. on the comparative merits of 
military and economic pressure on Germany, concluding in 
favour of the latter and of blockade to finish matters speed- 
ily. Lunched with the Countess Cahen d'Anvers, Lady 
Townshend and her daughter, and her nephew, Count de 
Fretteville. A house full of beautiful furniture, boiserie, 
tapestries, china, and the Townshend pictures from the 
sale of 1904. Count C. d'A. still ill and in bed. Lady T. in 
her old form, very bright and intelligent. The nephew was 
in the French Artillery, and then in the French Flying 
Corps, 1915 to 1918, and ended in command of a flight. 
He was never wounded even, which was almost a record 
for the long period that he was flying. He says that the 
French F.C. lost eighty-five per cent of their officers, of 
whom twenty per cent while training at the schools owing 
to bad instructors. He worked for a fortnight last year at 
Krupps' as a common workman, and is sure that Krupps 
produce guns which escape our Commissions of Control 
and that they have been arming the Reds against Wrangel. 
My view is that the Boches have certainly over four mil- 
lion rifles still at their disposal and perhaps 10,000 machine 
guns. They may have many guns. These things may help 
to account for their provocative attitude now and for the 
refusal to meet us over reparations. Saw Lord Hardinge 
for a few minutes. He is just back from Biarritz. We 
spoke of dAbernon's attitude in London. It has provoked 
great criticism among the French correspondents. I said 
that diplomats usually supported the country to which 
they were accredited. H. agreed, but said that while he al- 
ways supported France about French interests, he always 
placed England first when our interests and those of the 
French were in conflict. It takes a strong, resolute charac- 
ter to take this line. 



76 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

Burnham wires confirming his previous suggestion that 
I should go to the Rhine, and asks me to go on to Upper 
Silesia. The Plebiscite takes place on the 20th. Com- 
mandant Weil came to see me to-night, and we had a long 
talk over the French translation of my War Diary which 
he is superintending for Payot's firm. Here are two very 
apposite quotations from letters from Sieyes to Talleyrand 
which Weil gave me: 

"Des que vous entreprenez de prouver que vous avez 
raison un allemand croit que vous reculez.'* (Berlin, 
March 12, 1799.) 

"Quand une cause a et6 jugee par la victoire c'est la 
remettre en question que d'imprimer des phrases." 

Sent off a strong article to the D. T.ia favour of pressure 
by blockade. 

Thursday, March 10, 1921. Busy paying visits in the 
morning. Lunched at the Embassy with Hardinge, his 
daughter, and one of the Hamilton girls. We had a long 
talk over the position. He believes that the Council of 
Ambassadors will be asked to direct the Rhine customs 
war, but will have nothing to do with the military sanc- 
tions. He does not care even to contemplate the occupa- 
tion of Germany, as he considers that the administration of 
the country, railways, etc., would be a tremendous task in 
view of Boche ill-will and ill-temper. He is all for a block- 
ade. Little has been said about this yet in any part of the 
press, French or English. He hears that our Government 
is very discontented with the present sanctions. He does 
not think the Greeks strong enough to hold their position 
in Asia Minor, and does not consider the Greeks in that 
country to be real Greeks. The Oriental question is being 
fixed up to-day in London. H. thinks that the Council of 
Ambassadors gets through three times the amount of work 
in a given time, now that Derby and the American Am- 
bassador — neither of whom could speak French — are out 
of it. There is no translation now, all the work is done 
in French. H. has given up the old room of the Ambas- 
sadors looking over the courtyard, and now works in a 



M. BARTHOU ON EVENTS 77 

charming room looking south. Much more cheerful. The 
Board of Works critical for fear the carpet may become 
worn! 

I saw General Buat, the Chief of Staff, a very capable 
and shrewd man, as he proved himself to be during the war. 
I was agreeably surprised to find him wholly in favour of 
blockade as a means of constraint. He and I discussed a 
guerilla war in Germany. He does not think that the 
South African analogy applies because of its larger spaces 
and because in Germany we could levy money on towns, 
and squeeze the country more easily, but he does not want 
to undertake an occupation of Germany. He considers 
the Reichswehr an army of cadres and that all the plans 
are made for an eventual expansion. Our present advan- 
tage is largely due to the Boche want of artillery, but when 
the Commissions of Control are withdrawn there will be 
no obstacle to the restoration of the old war material, or 
better. All the studies of a new army and new appliances 
are in full swing in Germamy, and B. regards the Boche 
offer of payment on the Paris scale for five years as an in- 
dication of the period which will be needed for Germany 
to recover. 

Saw M. Louis Barthou, the War Minister, at six. De 
Castelnau was there and I had a little talk with him first. 
Barthou says that Louis Barthou agrees with Colonel Rep- 
ington about blockade, but that M. Barthou, the War 
Minister, has to await the decision of the President of the 
Council. He was very agreeable and we had a talk about 
my coming journey. He asked me to see him again as I 
returned through Paris. He has been fourteen times Min- 
ister, but never at the War Office before. I told him that 
he was about the twentieth French War Minister that I 
had visited. He agreed that the British system of Parlia- 
mentary Government was far better than the French; 
with the latter system there was no chance of carrying out 
a long-considered policy. He told me that his last news 
from Silesia was that the Poles were likely to win in the 
mining areas, which was the really important matter for us. 



78 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

Buat told me that I would probably have great difficulty 
in reaching the Plebiscite area, as the Commissions of Con- 
trol were placing every obstacle in the way of arrivals and 
the Boches would not want me to go there either. A cheer- 
ful prospect! 

Lady Townshend dined with me, and we went off to the 
Capucines Theatre, so much appreciated by King Edward, 
to see a most amusing piece, in which many French poli- 
ticians figured, especially Loucheur and Mandel, under 
their own names, and made up to resemble them. We do 
not accord this liberty to our playwrights. A real good 
show, the place crowded and very hot. 

Friday, March 11, 1921. A lovely day. Met Ian Mal- 
colm just back from Egypt, and we compared notes. He 
thinks that as independence comes nearer the Egyptians 
realise that they are not ready for it, or at least not ready 
for it all at once. Went to the Chamber of Deputies, and 
had a long talk with M. Andre Lefevre, late War Minister 
in the Governments of Millerand and Leygues. A striking 
character of whom we shall hear more if he lives. About 
the strongest man in Parliament here, not Jingo, but with 
a fixed idea that any measures are preferable to the re- 
sumption of the war with Germany, which event he con- 
siders certain within five years unless we adopt drastic 
courses. He confirms Buat's estimate of the Boche prepa- 
rations and puts their rifles down at four millions and their 
Maxims at many thousands. He also tells me that many 
essential parts of submarines are under construction, and 
I asked him to publish the information at once if it was 
authentic. He said that he would. He also believes that 
orders for arms are being executed in Sweden and else- 
where and that they are for the Germans eventually. His 
view is that directly the Commissions of Control are with- 
drawn, Germany will recommence to arm, and that it will 
not take her long to become the old Germany. If the 
United States and England had kept to the Treaty of 
Guarantees he would have been quite satisfied, because 
the Boches would not venture again to confront such a 



CONVERSATION WITH M. LEFEVRE 79 

combination, but the United States had taken the line of 
pretending that European affairs did not interest her, and 
England had scrapped her armies. He would prefer to re- 
tain the Commissions of Control permanently. If France 
had an assurance that Germany was disarmed, he would 
make no point of the maintenance of our present occu- 
pation, but as things stood he found it indispensable. 

He scoffed at the absurdity of our present methods of 
constraint. He was sure that they would fail. If they did 
he was for a combination of blockade with the extension 
of the occupation to the whole of the Ruhr Valley. How 
many people will you control.'^ I asked. About six mil- 
lions he thought. I said that there was all the Rhineland 
population besides, and that if we took this action we must 
have the whole machinery ready for feeding these people 
and for supplying raw material for industry. He admitted 
that this was so. I preferred a blockade on our present 
line to avoid this responsibility for the Ruhr, but he said 
that if the Poles won in the mining area of Silesia, and we 
controlled the Ruhr, German industry was disarmed for 
want of coal. He preferred the combination of my method 
with his. As for the occupation of Germany, he thought 
with me that this was an immense affair and he did not 
favour it. He thought that the Boches could wage a great 
guerilla war, and was not at all inclined to doubt it, or to 
underestimate it. He reminded me that he had not voted 
for the Versailles Treaty. He had refused amidst the silent 
resentment of the Chambers, with a few others. He thought 
that the marriage of England and France should be re- 
garded as permanent and that neither could do without 
the other. He was not convinced that Germany was not 
backing the new revolution in Russia and was not in doubt 
of a German-Russian combination if this came off. We 
discussed the whole situation in its various aspects, talking 
in a Committee Room where we were alone. I was struck 
by the attention and respect paid to him by other deputies 
as we strolled back through the lobbies and the Salle des 
Pas Perdus. He asked me what our F.O. policy was in the 



80 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

East of Europe and I said that I could not discover that 
they had one. Then you are Hving from hand to mouth? he 
asked. I said yes. He asked me to explain the English 
hatred of Poland, Roumania, etc. I replied that no such 
feeling existed. He also could not comprehend why Eng- 
land did not understand how grave the situation was in 
Europe and that we were practically recommencing war. 
I asked him to remember that we were an island and had 
only joined in the war for a special purpose. The war over, 
we reverted to our oceanic interests. America was in the 
same position and her greater detachment was due to her 
greater distance and insularity. It was an affair of geog- 
raphy and interests, and was not due to any double dose 
of original sin. 

Saturday, March 12, 1921. Lefevre is as good as his word, 
and prints in the Journal of this morning the details of 
Boche preparations for building submarines. L. is a com- 
petent technical authority. Spent part of last night in 
studying L. G.'s speech on Thursday in the H. of C. A 
most ineffective opposition which took quite the wrong 
line of criticism. My view is that when we take fifty per 
cent of the cost of German manufactured goods, the Boche 
contractors will cancel all their contracts unless the Ger- 
man Government undertakes to indemnify them, and I 
do not think they will. As for the Rhine customs I do not 
see why the Boches should walk into our Rhine trap when 
all the other holes remain open. My article sent to the 
D. T. does not appear, but a Times man at Cologne warns 
the public of the futility of the operation. The hugger- 
mugger scheme of London will come to nought. I see 
that L. G. counts in Poland and Czecho-Slovakia in his 
total of a sixty million a year German exports expected. 
But it remains to be seen whether the Poles and Czechs 
will join in our customs reprisal scheme, and, anyhow, how 
can we wait a year, and what is the use of such small sums 
to us when we want milliards of gold marks? The sole test 
of the efficacy of the present sanctions is whether they will 
make the Boche pay. L. G. says the Boche must make 



LUNCH WITH MARSHAL PETAIN 81 

fresh proposals. Dr. Simons says that they have none to 
make. He is much attacked by the Right in the Reichstag 
for offering too much ! 

It seems to me that the origin of all our present troubles 
is the detached attitude of America. She has protested her 
signature to the Versailles Treaty, has not ratified the 
Anglo-American Guarantee to France, and has rendered 
the League of Nations ridiculous by not joining it. She 
pretends that Europe does not interest her. We shall see 
whether she does not find that it interests her very nearly. 
I think that Hardinge will revert to sane policy if he be given 
time and is not rushed. Hardinge told me the other day 
that Auckland Geddes lives a dog's life at Washington. He 
and his family are preceded, followed, and surrounded 
everywhere by detectives, even his children at their play- 
ground. Our politicians have only had one vitally serious 
domestic problem to settle in my hfetime, namely Ireland, 
and they have completely failed in it for fifty years. Our 
Army has had about fifty problems during the same period 
and has solved them all. Of all the lower animals of 
creation the politician is the most ineffective. 

Lunched with Marshal and Mme. Petain, General Buat 
and his wife, Comte Clary and another man at Mme. 
Petain's house. We had a good talk over the situation and 
I did not find any reason to change my views. Buat is al- 
ready looking into the question of feeding the Boches in the 
Ruhr. I asked how many souls there were in the Ruhr and 
Rhineland together. He thought fifteen millions. I told 
him that he might have to supply the raw materials for 
the industries as well as food. He thought it clever of the 
Germans to send the raw materials from Prussia to the 
Rhineland to be made up, and then to be sent back for 
finishing. This tied the Rhineland to Prussia economically. 
I thought that we were in for great trouble owing to want 
of forethought. They are facilitating my mission to Silesia 
and Buat is writing to-night to General Le Rond, the 
Frenchman at Oppeln, to get me through. Petain expects 
fighting if the Poles win on the vote. We all agree upon the 



82 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

folly of allowing the emigres in Germany to come into the 
area and vote on the same day as the rest. They put it 
down to L. G., but I believe it was Berthelot who brought 
the question up in London, when it had been practically 
settled that the voting should be a fortnight later for the 
emigres. 

Clary is a great shot. We talked shooting. Petain was 
shooting at some big shoot the other day. He said that C. 
never aimed; he just put up his gun and the bird fell, he 
thought from fear. He tried to do the same, but a game- 
keeper reproved him, saying that C. was an artist and it 
was no good trying to imitate him: "Visez seulement M. le 
Marechal." So the Marshal vised and then got on all right. 
C. said that Clemenceau's father was buried at his own 
wish in a perpendicular position, as though standing up. 
C. told us of Jules Ferry's shooting exploits. He fired at 
anything anywhere, and generally hit somebody. One day 
Waldeck Rousseau was the next gun. Ferry fired, and W. R. 
fell into a ditch, nothing being visible but his boots. People 
ran up. "Qu'as tu done .?"... "Mais je n'ai rien"... 
"alors pourquoi" . . . ? "Oui! mais ce malheureux a un 
second coup a tirer!" 

It seems that Petain's report on the war is finished. He 
said that I might consult it when I wished, but that he had 
to submit it to Foch before publication. P. and B. thought 
that historical documents on operations were often mis- 
leading. People looked to some short order and found in it 
the genesis of some great operation, whereas usually it was 
merely the launching of some great plan that had been 
worked out by others weeks before. We talked of past 
War Ministers. Petain had a great regard for Painleve, but 
he worked till three in the morning. Barthou till 1 a.m. 
Millerand was a man of settled habits and hours. One al- 
ways knew when and where to find him. They both thought 
that men who could not organise their work did no good. 
They thought Lefevre most attractive, and honest, but an 
artist, and rather dangerous. He was a fine speaker with 
much fire and was highly esteemed in Parliament. They 



I GO TO COLOGNE 83 

asked if I held to Burnham's plan, and I said yes. I thought 
that the poHticians would take some time to work out 
their customs plan; it would then take a week or two for 
the French to discover that nothing would come of it, and 
by that time I hoped to be at Vienna to await the Mar- 
shal's wire to see the next move. 

Petain said that he had known his wife since she was five, 
that was so and so years ago. "Merci, mon ami," replied 
Mme. Petain with some vexation. He calls her "Mon 
Maitre." They teased me about Greece, and both seemed 
to know everything that I had done and said and written, 
no doubt from the diplomatic reports. *'Mais I'Angleterre 
a lache la Grece?" "II parait." "Qu'en pensez-vous.'*" 
"Nous avons perdu la manche, je n'ai plus rien a dire!" 
They found this tres beau and the real sporting spirit. 
Buat and I, driving off together, extolled the Mar- 
shal's exploits in the war. We both think that he has no 
equal. 

Cologne, Sunday, March 13, 1921. Left Paris 8.10 a.m.; 
arrived Cologne 7.47 p.m. Captain Macduff, R.T.O., met 
me. Room taken for me at the Town Major's Mess at the 
Kolner Hof . Clean and comfortable with a perfect bath- 
room. Met in the train on my journey General Masterman 
of the R.A.F. in charge of aircraft control on the Inter- 
Allied Military Commission in Berlin, and the French 
General Nollet, President of the Commission. They were 
all returning to Berlin, Masterman with his wife and 
Captain Plugge of his staff. Masterman says that they 
have seized or destroyed 14,000 German aeroplanes and 
28,000 engines, but that the German commercial metal 
aeroplanes are coming on fast and may have great value 
in a war. They are slower, but much safer than our planes 
at the end of the war, being built for safety and to travel at 
economical speed. With 160 h.p. they can do all our 
English planes of 300 h.p. can do and at half the cost. The 
Germans were ordered to stop building them because they 
had not carried out their engagements under the Treaty, 
but they took no notice. M. says that about December 



84 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

last the tone of the Germans changed. He could not give 
the reason, but supposed that they thought themselves 
strong enough to resist. 

General Nollet put down the change of tone to between 
September and November last, but he could not assign 
any special date or cause to the change. He agreed that 
the number of rifles undelivered was still in the region of 
four millions, and that there were still heaps of machine 
guns. These things were easy to hide. When he asked the 
Germans for their statistics of production, they pretended 
that all the papers had been destroyed during the Revo- 
lution. None of the seven or eight big Berthas had been 
found yet. They are said to have been destroyed by the 
Boches, but Nollet did not affirm that it was so. He re- 
garded our present sanctions as merely a warning and 
believed that a blockade would have to be imposed. He 
and another of his officers thought that it was by far the 
most effective measure, in fact the only one. 

Nollet considered that the Silesian plebiscite was of 
immense importance, and did not appear confident about 
the result. One of his staff remarked that all the plebis- 
cites yet held had gone in favour of the country with the 
best exchange, and in this case German marks were of 
more value than Polish. But against this would be the 
reparation to pay if the regions remained German. 

I told General Nollet that I had been impressed while in 
Paris by the serious character of the German situation. 
Was it true that unless the control was permanently 
maintained the Germans could recover their old position 
in five years? He said it was. He thought that materially 
they could recover their power in two years, but that to 
work up the whole military machine again might take five 
years. On the other hand, he said that a permanent control 
was morally impracticable as it was not in the Treaty. It 
might be imposed as a sanction. He did not credit young 
Count de F.'s story ^ about the guns at Essen. Nollet 
had staff officers permanently attached there, and he 

* See entry for March 9. 



THE GERMAN SITUATION 85 

thought they knew everything. It was not in the German 
interest to make the guns. Their interest was to get us out 
of Germany. We had enough trouble in Germany without 
adding more. But he confirmed Lefevre's story ^ about 
the submarines and said that the facts were known to our 
Naval Commission. 

We agreed in regarding the whole position as grave. The 
Anglo-American guarantee of France would have covered 
everything, as Germany would never have faced it again, 
but now America was out, and the English had no army, 
nor even the machinery for making one. So naturally the 
Germans were planning a revenge and we should do the 
same in their place. In the same way he did not lose 
his temper over German evasions of disarmament, as he 
thought it natural. But the Germans certainly had not 
carried out their engagements, quite apart from repara- 
tions. He has 450 officers under him including 120 French. 
A good, cool, capable officer. 

Monday, March 14, 1921. Saw Lieutenant-General Sir 
Thomas Morland, Commanding our Rhine Army, and a 
number of other officers in the course of the morning. 
Learnt that four out of our eight battalions here have gone 
to Silesia imder Wauchope, the battalions sent averaging 
only 400 men each. Mr, Julian Piggott, the representative 
of the Rhineland High Commission, lunched with me. X 
had seen him yesterday, and had found that we were fully 
in accord. But he threw much new light on the most 
diflScult situation. He is not in principle opposed to the 
L. G.'s fifty per cent scheme, provided that it is imposed in 
agreement with Germany, and he tells me that Simons 
thought the scheme a good one when he talked with a 
member of the German F.O. on returning from London. 
But the scheme is useless without an agreement, for unless 
the German Government recoup the German traders their 
loss of fifty per cent, they will either increase their prices 
correspondingly, making us pay reparations, or obviously 
will not trade with us, and there is no sign of an intention 

* See entry for March 11. 



86 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

on the part of the German Government to put down the 
money. As for the Rhine customs barrier, this is to be 
estabhshed on the actual Hne of the Rhine. A part of the 
German personnel now working on the western frontier of 
the Rhineland are to be transferred to the eastern frontier 
and are to work under Allied supervision. The Tariff is 
not yet laid down. If it is low, it will not repay the cost 
of administration, which will be important, and if it is 
high, it will deflect trade from the Rhineland. The Tariff 
is now being considered by the Inter-Allied High Com- 
mission at Coblenz. Only this morning a big textile firm 
in our area notified Piggott's Labour branch that they 
expected to have to dismiss 25,000 workmen when the cus- 
toms barrier was imposed. Goods are already being rushed 
out, and inward contracts being broken. Financial and 
commercial chaos is fairly well assured, and the main ob- 
ject of making the Germans pay reparations is no nearer. 
The Rhineland is bound to suffer from the present plan 
and to have to deal with serious unemployment which 
may need an increase of our garrison. 

To take over the money from the German customs 
officials is one thing. To set up a customs barrier of our 
own is another. From the Dutch to the Swiss frontier 
along the Rhine must be some three hundred and fifty 
miles and it will be a big affair to organise this if we are 
unable to enlist Germans for the job. The R.H.C. has not 
been consulted by the Supreme Council. Some eighty per 
cent of the raw materials used in the Rhineland industries 
come from Germany which also takes a large part of the 
finished goods. We shall presumably tax the flow each 
way, and what seems certain is an increase of prices, de- 
flection of trade, and unemployment. We are dealing with 
a trade which cannot, however taxed, bring in a tithe of 
the amount needed monthly for reparations, and the one 
thing certain is that the payments from Germany are 
brought no nearer. 

Piggott and I agree in disliking anything in the nature of 
an extended occupation, whether of the Ruhr Valley, or of 



VISIT TO DUSSELDORF 87 

Germany as a whole. He will not admit blockade be- 
cause of the world's obloquy which will follow. But he 
suggests the prolongation of the Rhineland occupation 
until all claims are met, and thinks that this may sat- 
isfy Foch who will then keep his garrisons on the Rhine. 
Piggott wants us to reopen negotiations with the Germans. 

It seemed to us both that we were in presence of a 
very skilful German plan of campaign, as dangerous as in 
1914, and that we were replying by an opportunist and 
light-headed policy which was bound to fail. All remedies 
seemed to us nearly as bad as the disease, and the worst 
feature of all was that no one in London appeared to com- 
prehend the situation. 

Dined with General Morland at the G.O.C.'s house 
where I formerly stayed with Sir W. Robertson. A party 
of eight men including Sir George Ashton, Colonel Fuller 
of the General Staff here, and Colonel Longstreet, U.S.A. 
A pleasant talk and we played Bridge till late. 

Tuesday, March 15, 1921. Started soon after 10 a.m. 
and motored with Colonel Fuller and Hutton-Watson 
west of the Rhine to Diisseldorf, where we saw General 
Gaucher commanding the French and Colonel Brown 
commanding the 14th Hussars and our troops here, 
which include four Tanks. We visited the billets and 
stables of the 14th. They all lunched with me and then 
we motored on to Ruhrort and Duisburg, returning to 
Cologne about 6 p.m. Diisseldorf a fine town with pleasant 
boulevards, avenues, and gardens. General Gaucher, 
whom we visited at his H.Q., says that there are 475,000 
inhabitants and that 125,000 workmen are employed here. 
A tall, genial, capable, resolute man. He has found the 
1500 Schiitzpolizei, or green police — mostly old N.C.O.'s 
— contumacious, and has got rid of half already. He says 
that the Belgians have claimed the command at Duisburg 
and Ruhrort as they have the bulk of the troops there. Is 
the famous unity of command gone so soon? I asked. It 
is always difficult to get, replied Gaucher. 

Ruhrort is a revelation. It is the port of the Westphalian 



88 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

coalfield, and on the Rhine and its affluents and in basins 
and canalised branches there are thirty -two kilometres of 
quays, alongside of which and in the stream are hundreds of 
coal barges and steamers. The trade must be immense, as 
from one-half to two-thirds of the German coal comes this 
way, and so to its purchasers all over Europe. The whole 
country here seems like the busiest part of Lancashire, the 
towns and factories extending endlessly. Everything is 
peaceful. The Allied troops all walk about without arms 
and the Germans take little notice of them. But our small 
numbers are almost lost in these huge overgrown manu- 
facturing centres, and how on earth we are to set up a 
customs barrier here, or to supply the people if a tariff 
arrests trade, no one can suggest. Finished an article on 
my brief visit here. I think that we have got into a fine 
muddle, and it will be curious to see how we get out of it. 
I am told that the coal output of Germany is 120,000,000 
tons in Westphalia, 30,000,000 in Upper Silesia, and a few 
millions more from other smaller fields. Thus the impor- 
tance of the Ruhr port and of Silesia is palpable. 

Berlin, Wednesday, March 16, 1921. Started early for 
Berlin. After traversing the ravaged area of France last 
Sunday, I was hating the Boche so badly that I would not 
speak a word to any fellow-travellers. Arrived 9.30 p.m. 
My telegram of yesterday morning had not yet reached 
the Adlon Hotel, so I was sent on to a vile place called 
Iderna in Charlottenburg. No bath! Too late to change 
quarters. In the train to-day I thought the fields looked 
fairly well, but rather dried up. Considerable develop- 
ment of trade traffic. Permanent way good. Material so- 
so, and carriages very dirty. In the restaurant car chiefly 
pig to eat. No butter or sugar. Bread black. 

Thursday, March 17, 1921. Took my things to the Aldon 
early. Met Lord Kilmarnock at the Embassy and we had 
a talk. Have to get a French visa for the Silesian visit. 
Later lunched with the Kilmarnocks at 6 Parizer Platz, 
very well placed. Addison and Fane of the Embassy — 
Fane a stepson of Cis Fane's — and Major Beasley of the 



BERLIN AND BRESLAU 89 

Control Commission from Dresden. Kilmarnock told me 
that he had seen Dr. Simons last night and that the latter 
had told him that the rumors of a German concentration 
on the Polish frontier were untrue; that Germany would 
rather receive an affront than give one; but that if the 
Poles took part in any sanctions they would be resisted. 
K. also said that the Control Commission had denied to 
him the truth of the rumors about the concentration. 
The rumour had come in the form of a Polish commu- 
nique which Renter had sent on. So I sent a wire to the 
D. T. about it. 

Much talk of the Conference, the Reparations, and the 
Sanctions. I fancy the general opinion of the Embassy is 
that the Boche cannot pay the Paris claims, but that no 
one is honest enough to state the fact to the public. They 
think that the economic sanctions will do us at least as 
much harm as the Boche. A nice girl of the Kilmarnocks 
and her governess also at lunch. My first visit to Berlin 
since the war. A great come-down since old days. I missed 
the soldiers and the officers in the Tiergarten. The Sicher- 
heitspolizei, now Schiitzpolizei, are quite obviously regular 
troops. Beasley told us much about the work of the Con- 
trol Commission. They give Germany a year to rearm if 
the control is removed. If the Boches had been wise they 
would have met us in every way in order to get us out of 
the country. But they never are wise. 

Left 3.30 for Breslau. The train crowded with men and 
women on the way to vote in Upper Silesia. Talked with 
a former Judge from the Tarnowitz area who was also on 
his way to vote and was in my compartment. They all 
seem very cocksure of winning. Some 200,000 to 250,000 
people who were born in Silesia are coming in from outside 
to vote. The organisation appears to be good. The Polish 
mark is only worth seven pfennigs, and stands in relation 
to the German mark as the latter does in relation to the 
pound sterling. They say that there is a Polish law which 
compels all debts to be paid in Polish marks, and that the 
difference in the exchange will heavily influence the vote. 



90 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

All the stations decorated, and crowds to see the outvoters. 
I asked whom they were waiting to see and they said, 
"The victors." This referred to the men who had fought 
in the war and had not been back in Upper Silesia since. 
They call them "victors" because the idea still is that 
the army won the war and the Revolution lost the peace. 
Went to the Monopole at Breslau. Full up. Got a good 
room at the Goldene Gans, but found that the bath here 
was alles kaput. What chance of a bath at Oppeln I wonder? 
During the talk in the train to-day the Judge said that 
there would be another Conference, probably after Easter 
and in Italy. I said that the atmosphere was different in 
Italy. He smiled and agreed. It may be the best way out 
of all this muddle, but maybe Briand will not think so. As 
wonderful a March as a February, Quite hot and brilliant 
sunshine still. Kilmarnock's girl fined yesterday for having 
a Japanese spaniel unmuzzled. She referred the policeman 
to the English Botschaft. He said he didn't worry about 
the Botschafts and made her pay. 

Oppeln, Friday, March 18, 1921. Started 7.47 a.m. for 
Oppeln. A great crowd which swarmed in and I could not 
find a seat. So enlisted the station-master and he put me 
in with the Dienstabteil, some five or six train guards and 
attendants, some old soldiers. Rauchen was strengverhoten, 
so I gave them some cigarettes and we were soon all happy. 
We talked soldiering. One chap had been in the 6th Uh- 
lans, had fought at Ypres, Arras, and in Russia, had been 
four times wounded, had had malaria and typhus, had 
been made prisoner in Russia and had been knouted by his 
Russian guards when he did not work hard enough, though 
he remarked that the German prisoners in England were 
playing football. He had been nearly frozen to death 
in Siberia and so on. I was not surprised to hear that he 
was fed up with war. They thought Hindenburg the best 
German general, and made grimaces when I asked about 
Ludendorff. They thought the Grand Duke Nicholas the 
best Russian leader and said that the English and French 
had good generals too. At Breslau, and all along the line, 



OPPELN, UPPER SILESIA 91 

bands, crowds, decorations, and cheering at the stations, 
but on reaching the plebiscite area all this ceased, as the 
Commission has forbidden all music, flags, and demonstra- 
tions. They have also wisely stopped all spirits for three 
days before the plebiscite. The drunken Pole is a real ter- 
ror. The Germans very submissive. They were delighted 
to hear of British troops on the Polish front. All the Ger- 
man organisation for the plebiscite working well, and as 
the trainloads of the outvoters pass down the confidence 
increases. From a railway point of view it is a practice 
mobilisation. 

But on reaching Oppeln found the Poles equally con- 
fident and also their French friends. Saw General Le Rond 
and Colonel Percival for a few moments. Went to the 
office, and Mr. F. Bourdillon, the English civil member of 
the Commission, most kindly offered to put me up in a 
tiny room in a flat which he only takes over to-day, but 
lucky to get any room with all this mob here. Robin Gray 
turned up from Warsaw, and we lunched together. Lumby 
from Warsaw, and Macartney, the Times man from Berlin, 
here: there are eighty-five foreign correspondents already 
arrived ! Had a good talk with several well-informed peo- 
ple. Wrote and sent off a wire to the D. T. on the situation 
and about the prospects of Sunday's vote. It seems likely, 
according to the views of the experts, that the eastern 
quarter of Upper Silesia will vote Polish including the 
industrial triangle which has its apex at Gleiwitz and its 
base south of Tarnowitz to south of Myslowitz. But all 
west of the Oder, and a good part east of the river, besides 
the Kreuzberg area, expected to vote German, with most 
of the large towns throughout. The Germans have the pull 
of all the administration being in their hands, and the fall 
of the Polish mark to the value of some seven pfennigs also 
helps them. The Commissions seem to have taken a very 
firm hold and combine firmness with impartiality. 

In the evening at 9.30 p.m. called on General Le Rond 
by appointment at the Prasidenz, a large building where 
are the offices, council chamber, etc. The General is well 



92 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

protected. He has double sentries on all sides of the house, 
and the only entrance at night is through the French guard- 
room in the court behind. A shortish man, rather lean, 
with a nervous keen face, much intelligence and more van- 
ity. He was in command of French artillery most of the 
war and now has an Army Corps. He says that he was on 
Foch's staff during the Peace Conference and has been in 
Silesia fourteen months. He gave me an interesting ac- 
count of his administration. He said that his triumvirate 
of himself, Percival, and the Italian General de Marinis 
ruled despotically without a Parliament, but through the 
German administration which they controlled. He had 
gradually cut off many of the links and wires which united 
Upper Silesia with Breslau and Berlin. He had a regular 
government in several departments, including that of 
Finance, and after meeting all expenses he had a surplus of 
300,000,000 (marks, I suppose), which were in banks here 
and would be handed over to any government which came 
about from the plebiscite. He did not tell me of his govern- 
ment debts. He had endeavoured to disarm the people, 
and had collected between 30,000 and 40,000 rifles, but 
arms came in from both sides, Poles and Germans, and he 
did not pretend that the district was not still full of arms. 
He thought that all men had rifles and many had two. 
There were at least eight million rifles at the time of the 
Armistice, and even if 3,500,000 had been collected by 
the Control Commission, 4,500,000 remained. I asked the 
General about the green police seen about. Why had he 
kept them while Gaucher had suppressed them? They 
were not, he said, the Sicherheit lot. They were a special 
plebiscite body carefully selected ^ from Germans and 
Poles in equal proportions, and every patrol, etc., was 
similarly constituted. They acted as checks on each other 
and it was the same for the officers. They wore blue bands 
on their caps and tunics to differentiate them from the 
Sicherheit lot. 

He thought that he had proved the possibility of an 

* When the Poles rose in May, most of the Polish police joined them. 



AROUND THE PLEBISCITE AREA 93 

allied government of at least a considerable province. He 
said, however, in answer to a question of mine, that though 
the Poles had responded to every request of his, even to a 
stricter watch along their own frontier, he had reason to 
complain of the Germans, but did not give me any proofs 
except about arms concerning which, it seems to me, both 
sides are equally to blame, and probably each has acted 
from motives of fear of the other side. He said that after 
the vote on Sunday it would take three weeks to check and 
confirm the figures. Then the Commission would have to 
consider the results and advise their Governments. Then 
the matter would go to the Supreme Council, and it might 
not be till the first fortnight in June that the fate of the 
country, or the terms of a partition, would be settled. 

I told him how good the German Heimat-treu or German 
outvoters organisation appeared to me to be. He claimed 
more or less the credit of it, as he had arranged for the 
trains and the control of arrivals at the plebiscite frontiers. 
But I think the matter is in all serious respects of German 
planning, and the reception arrangements here are excel- 
lent. The trains are all met: there are wooden houses out- 
side the stations where the arrivals are told where to go 
and how to get there, and are given a free meal and every- 
thing they want including writing paper. The return jour- 
ney is arranged in the same way. We concluded our talk 
by discussing the general situation and his own career. He 
is evidently very proud of his work, and did not mention 
in his laudation of it the names of any of his fellow-com- 
missioners or assistants. 

Saturday, March 19, 1921. Went off in a car with Major 
Robin Gray of the Grenadiers from Oppeln to Lublinitz, 
two hours fast travelling, where we found Colonel Wau- 
chope's flag in the act of being hoisted outside the Schloss 
of some Count a little to the north of the town. We walked 
a bit with him and his B.M. and then lunched. A very 
comfortable Schloss, bed and bath rooms very perfect. All 
the third floor given up to him and some six officers and a 
French liaison oflBcer. A good talk over the position. The 



94 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

British troops extend along the Polish frontier from Rosen- 
berg to Beuthen, a "front" of about one hundred miles 
held by 1600 men! I have seen the British Army in many 
countries and many strange circumstances, but never 
expected to find it on the frontier of Poland looking out 
over the mournful Sarmatian plains. 

Our H.Q. are at Lublinitz with the 1st Black Watch and 
two companies 1st Middlesex besides details. H.Q. 1st 
Middlesex two companies, Rosenberg : 2d Royal West Kent 
at Kreuzberg: H.Q. 1st Sussex, Tarnowitz, and one com- 
pany at Beuthen in the mining area which begins at Tar- 
nowitz reckoning from the north. Wauchope is a good man 
and a good soldier, with all the charming and chivalrous 
courtesy of his uncle Andy Wauchope who fell at Magers- 
fontein. Morland and the Rhine Army staff have fitted 
out Wauchope's force right well. They have all they need 
including wireless with each battalion, trench mortars, 
motor cyclists, good horse transport, and lorries to allow 
rapid movements of detachments. They have thirty days' 
supplies besides a train of food sent weekly from the Rhine. 
A French 75 mm. battery attached to them. There are 
eight control posts of six to twenty men on the actual Pol- 
ish frontier, but if the Poles wish to cross, or to send arms 
across, they can, as the posts are much too far apart to 
stop such traffic, and this is inevitable from the weak num- 
bers. They are merely on the frontier to control the main 
roads and to protect the inhabitants. The Germans are 
delighted to have them there. Bright sun, and keen wind. 
It was snowing when our men came here, but now the 
drifts only remain on the north side of the fences and 
woods, and in the ditches. 

The road from Oppeln runs through seemingly endless 
fir woods which are beautifully kept and regularly cut and 
replanted. The trees are planted a few feet apart and shed 
their lower branches as the straight stems grow up leaving 
no knots in the wood. Gray described to me how well the 
German women looked after the forestry nursery gardens 
during the war while he was a prisoner in Germany. The 



THE INDUSTRIAL TRIANGLE 95 

rural district is not unpleasant and farm houses not unpic- 
turesque, but the flatness of the whole country is depress- 
ing. It is said that the Alpine chasseurs who are here were 
sent because the district was "Haute" Silesie, and the 
French thought it must be mountainous! So also it is said 
that Colonel Hawker of the Coldstreams and two other 
good pundits on Eastern languages were sent here because 
Silesia was confused with Cilicia! 

The mining area begins at Tamowitz and continues 
right down to south of Myslowitz running up westwards 
to Gleiwitz. It is typical Black Country with almost limit- 
less coal of some seams thirty-six feet thick extending, it is 
supposed, right down to Pless, but all the southern area is 
unexploited so far. There are iron, zinc, lead mines, etc., 
and what with the power stations, railways, pumping ar- 
rangements, and interdependence of one part of the in- 
dustry on another, it will be a most formidable task to 
partition the mining area between two States. Germany 
has done a big thing in organising and directing the work 
here, and I can find no one who believes that the Poles can 
manage it. We went through the mining area to Beuthen 
and Konigshiitte, and turned back through Zabze, Glei- 
witz, and Gross Strehlitz to Oppeln, I suppose about two 
hundred and fifty miles, arriving 8.30 p.m. frozen cold and 
stiff ^ from the keen air and fast pace. Bourdillon had the 
Percivals, Miss Chapman, and Colonel Tetbury dining. 
Sat down as I was, very unkempt, and took an appreciable 
time to thaw. A pleasant dinner, and much talk of the 
events round us. All reported perfectly quiet on all sides. 

Sunday, March 20, 1921. Voting day in the plebiscite 
area. As trouble was most expected in the mining area and 
on the Polish frontier, I went off there early with Colonel 
Hawker of the Coldstreams, Captain Turner of the Indian 
Cavalry, and Major McVey, a professor. The car went ill, 
and we were much delayed, but reached our destination 
Kattowitz and lunched with a clever barrister in uniform, 

^ Less than three months later poor Robin Gray was dead. A fine soldier and 
a good comrade. 



96 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

Major Stevenson, and Craig of the Food Commission. 
One of Hoover's Americans came and talked mining to us 
at lunch. We went on to Myslowitz and got out to walk to 
the frontier and had a good view of Poland beyond the 
little river boundary. I was amused by the British corporal 
off duty who said that he was going to walk down "to have 
a chat with them Poles." It must have been a treat. All 
seemed quiet. There were no guards on the railway and 
footbridge here. Hawker had suggested them to Le Bond's 
military department on the advice of the railway people, 
but the M.D. had turned the proposal down alleging want 
of troops. Accounts of the Polish forces across the frontier 
vary. There is certainly a cordon, and Hawker says 40,000 
men in arms all told. 

I forgot to note that Gray and I yesterday at Beuthen 
went to see Korfanty, the former Polish Deputy in the 
Reichstag, now an honorary member of the Warsaw Par- 
liament. He is the soul of the Polish cause here. One of 
the active spirits thrown up by these tempestuous times. 
A man under fifty, formerly a miner, strong and stoutly 
built, medium height with a good head and much intelli- 
gence. He has a savage-looking wolf-dog who barks when 
anyone says " Heimat-treu'* and often bites too. He bit 
Wauchope one day! Korfanty lives in an hotel strongly 
guarded by his supporters. The stairs have steel bars to 
check a rush, and the windows have thick wire over them 
to keep out bombs. He told us that he expected to win up 
to the Oder, but that several big towns would have large 
German majorities. He had come into possession of, i.e., 
had bought from German agents that morning, all the 
German plan of provoking the Poles in case the Election 
went in Polish favour. I asked him what he meant to do in 
case of a disturbance. He said that he would give the Allies 
forty-eight hours in which to suppress it and would then 
call out his people. I passed this on to Percival last night. 

We visited a few other places and returned to Oppeln by 
about 9.30 p.m. after another long day. Dined at Forms 
Hotel. At about 11.15 p.m. the figures were out for Oppeln 



THE PLEBISCITE 97 

town — not the Kreis — giving a German majority of 
some ninety per cent on the whole vote. Crowds assembled, 
flowing in from all parts, and marched up and down the 
main street in front of the Prasidenz in more or less mili- 
tary array, singing Heil dir in Siegerskranz, and other 
patriotic songs. They were perfectly orderly, but as Le 
Rond is at the Prasidenz, and two French guards were 
within a stone's throw, it must have been trying for the 
French, and I wondered what was taking place in the min- 
ing area. Got back about midnight. Bourdillon got home 
a little later. 

I should have noted that during the day we went to see 
some polling-booths and found them well organised. There 
is a President, a Stellvertreler, a clerk, and a representative 
of the Germans and of the Poles. As each voter comes in, 
he or she has to show a photograph and give evidence of 
identity. The names are checked in the communal lists. 
Each voter is then given two cards, and, after selecting the 
one, destroys the other in a secret cabin where a candle 
burns. There is thus no evidence how the votes go, or who 
votes one way or the other. The card selected is placed in 
an envelope and dropped into the voting-box or urn. All 
necessary precautions seem to be taken. There was no 
crowd at any polling-station. The crowds reserved them- 
selves for our Tanks and for the post-oflSces where the 
plebiscite endorsed stamDs bearing to-day's date have a 
great vogue. 

Monday, March 21, 1921. Spent the day in Oppeln see- 
ing people and hearing news. As the day wore on and the 
returns came in, it became clear that the forecast which I 
had sent to the D. T. on Friday was coming very nearly 
true. The Poles have a very small majority east of the line 
Upper Oder-Kosel-Rosenberg, and the Germans to the 
west of this line, but the towns throughout the plebiscite 
area have voted German. Therefore the problem for the 
European Governments remains the same, and the only 
change is that it has become better known. Figures are still 
incomplete, but broadly there seem to have been 670,000 



98 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

German votes against 480,000 Polish over the whole 
area. As there were 188,000 of the Heimat-treu outvoters, 
they practically decided the Election in the German favour 
over the area as a whole. The heaviest voting figures were 
in the mining area, where there voted 260,000 for Germany 
and 210,000 for Poland, the town vote going for the former 
and the land vote for the Poles. Such result was unexpected, 
but the Germans have lost Gross Strehlitz which is a great 
blow to them. I saw General Le Rond in the late after- 
noon. I do not think that either he or the Poles are very 
contented with the results. However, he says that an 
Allied Government has been found practicable, and the 
plebiscite has been held without disturbance, so there is 
now nothing left but to reach a decision. He did not think 
this easy and asked for my views. I said that the mass 
of German and Polish voters were on the west and east of 
the Oder-Kosel-Rosenberg line respectively, and that this 
seemed to me a good line if partition was decided, but that 
for the mining area alone I thought partition was eco- 
nomically inadvisable, as the whole was so interdependent 
in relation to railways, water, power, light, and sand sup- 
ply. The Commissioner favours the Kosel-Rosenberg line, 
but the Poles have apparently not all voted Polish, or were 
less numerous than was thought. The good German propa- 
ganda may have turned many voters. I suggested an 
Inter-Allied regime for a period of years over the mining 
area, and the General seems to favour it. 

To-day I went into the situation and statistics of the 
mining area with Major R. W. Clarke, R.E., the extremely 
capable head of the mining department of the Commission 
which at present controls and practically commands the 
whole output and marketing of the coal. Clarke has a 
profound and probably unique knowledge of Central 
European mining. This Upper Silesian coalfield is carbon- 
iferous and belongs to old measures. It has been most 
closely surveyed and the reserve supplies estimated. They 
amount to 113,000,000,000 tons largely in the still unex- 
ploited area running south to Pless, and the coal is called 



MAJOR R. W. CLARKE, R.E, 99 

"long-flame," or what we should call steam and house coal, 
suitable for industries and for any steam boilers. The de- 
fect of the basin is that there is little coking coal for the 
blast furnaces and for steel-making, so the coke has to be 
brought from outside to a large extent. There is a big coal 
measure fault on the line Rybnik-Gleiwitz where the strata 
are two thousand metres lower to west than to east and 
so at an unworkable depth. 

In the main field the coal measures are quite accessible 
and the deepest mine is only seven hundred and eighty 
metres. The average depth of the best seams is three 
hundred metres, and the thickness is usually eight to ten 
metres, and runs up to the extremely unusual thickness of 
thirteen metres. The area is almost all mined by private 
owners who form their own companies. Their profits were 
formerly immense, but now, although coal letches two 
hundred marks a ton at the pithead, not ten per cent of the 
mines pay dividends. This is due to the six hundred per 
cent increase of miners' wages and to high cost of materials. 
The former profits have enabled the best machinery to be 
installed, and all the arrangements for the railways, water, 
power, light, and so on have been systematically and ex- 
pensively organised for the area as a whole, or what Clarke 
calls the industrial triangle. 

The Silesian coalfield is not very conveniently situated 
for markets, and the loss of the Russian market seriously 
affects its prosperity. The coal sales are arranged by the 
Commission. About 36 per cent of the coal goes to Ger- 
many, 8.8 per cent to Poland, 6.3 per cent to Austria, 2.4 
per cent to Italy, and 2.5 per cent to Czecho-Slovakia. 
The remainder is absorbed by the local Silesian industries. 
Reckoned in another manner, about 15 per cent of the coal 
goes in reparations to the Allies, 40 per cent to Germany 
for public uses, and the remainder is available for general 
trading. The collieries work two or three shifts a day and 
six days a week. The miner or hewer is actually at work 
for only five and one-half hours a shift. He gains three 
hundred marks a week and about one thousand a month. 



100 CONT^ERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

The mark on the exchange compared with our money is 
as 1 to 12, but in practical life its value is as 1 to 3 in Ger- 
many. The output has fallen from 1.3 tons per man per 
day in 1914 to .55 ditto now. I am told that fifty per cent 
more men since wages went up produced twenty-five per 
cent less coal than before. Clarke thinks them bad hewers 
and says that discipline ceased with the Revolution, and 
the men were also underfed up to a year ago. Not all that 
he can do to coax the miners to work more by dint of pay 
and rations can get more than one per cent more coal out 
of the mines. The hewers are mainly Poles, but all the 
skilled direction is German and so is the skilled labour in 
the mines and in iron and the steel industries. Were the 
Germans to lose this area it would take five years to train 
eight thousand certificated ofiicials alone. In the Saar the 
German skilled staff left and there resulted a drop of forty 
per cent in the output. The Germans who left were ab- 
sorbed by the other industries of Germany. 

The other industries in the triangle are zinc, lead mines, 
and iron and steel industries. All the "huttes" vote Ger- 
man because they are such industries and the greater part 
of the work is skilled, and so German. The Poles have 
heaps of coal in their Dombrova field which has a proved 
area of seventeen hundred square kilometres, but is not 
properly exploited. The Poles have no real need of the 
Silesian coal, and what they take they are not now paying 
for nor do they return the coal wagons. 

The triangle may be to a large extent worked out for 
coal in sixty to one hundred years. The great reserve is in 
the south running down to Pless where the coal is proved, 
but not yet worked. One solution is to give all this un- 
worked area to Poland with a few neighbouring mines now 
working and to leave the triangle to Germany. Clarke 
entirely opposed to partition. As I told him and Le Rond, 
it seemed to me the problem of Solomon and the baby. 

One of the interesting features of these large Silesian 
mines is the use of sand and water to fill in the mined pil- 
lars as these are hewed out. The sand and water are led in 



MOTOR TO BRESLAU 101 

by pipes, and in two days congeal into a solid mass and 
work can continue alongside of it. It would be a tremen- 
dous and most unsatisfactory affair to run a political divid- 
ing line through the mining area owing to the interdepend- 
ence of the whole in utility services. The two great power ^. 
stations are near Hindenburg and at Charzow. 

Private citizens are allowed to work the Crown lands if 
they prove a workable field, and the concession is given to 
the first person who produces the necessary samples of the 
coal gotten by testing. Clarke thinks that there will be a 
great world surplus of coal soon, and that this complicates 
the whole situation. 

The two books from which details are usually drawn — 
to suit every thesis — are the Handbuch des Oberschlesis- 
chen Industriebezirks, published by the Oberschlesischen 
Berg and Huttenmannischen Verein at Kattowitz in 1913, 
and the Jahrbuch fiir den Obergamtsbezirk Breslau, also 
published at Kattowitz in 1913. But these are really only 
useful for comparison. For the present purpose they are 
out of date. Dined with the Percivals, Colonel Hawker. 
Major Gray, and Tidbury. A great talk, and we played 
Bridge. I like Percival, who is a good man working under 
inconceivable difficulties. 

Tuesday, March 22, 1921. Went to Tidbury 's ofl^ce 
where the coloured map of the results is nearly finished by 
Bourdillon. It is a mosaic of red for Germany and blue for 
Poland. Bourdillon checked up the results east of my Oder 
line. They give 386,070 Polish votes to 371,000 German, so 
it is a very near thing. Said good-bye to the very good lot 
of fellows at work on a thankless task, especially to my most 
kind host Bourdillon, who is a charming character. Mo- 
tored to Breslau. Stopped three times on the way by the 
French and two German control posts, who examined my 
passport. Uninteresting Middle Silesian country, very 
flat and dull, but appearing prosperous. The towns neat, 
the churches attractive with quaint towers. At the Mono- 
pole. Saw and talked to Major Piper and his pretty wife 
after dinner. He is on the control of German effectives. 



102 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

and says that not only is tlie police an army, but is a very 
efficient one consisting of the pick of the old N.C.O.'s. 
The pay offices for pensioners are practically the old depots 
and expansion is arranged. The General Staff, abolished 
by Treaty, goes on just the same except that the officers 
are nominally retired and wear mufti. It is impracticable 
to stop it. 

Wednesday, March 23, 1921. Went to a bank to get some 
Czech money on a letter of credit. They did not seem to 
understand it and kept me hanging about for nearly an 
hour. The Directors came down to examine me as if I were 
a new beast at the Zoo. Lunched with the Pipers, and after- 
wards, on hearing that I was here, there drove over to see 
us Prince and Princess Bliicher from their place some fif- 
teen miles out from here. The Princess and I had a talk 
about our respective books both published by Constable. 
We were not jealous of each other, as each book has run 
into ten impressions. She tells me that her original book 
was nearly twice as long as the book she published, but she 
had to cut out all the accounts of and reflections upon 
many persons, so the real book will not see the light in our 
day, I suppose. We talked of exchanging our original MS. 
or of joining the books to make one. She sees few English 
here now except Princess Miinster and Princess Daisy of 
Pless, who is going to get a divorce and does not see why it 
should prevent her living at Pless's house! It seems that 
Princess B. has found out that her denial of the Lusitania 
Medal having been struck in Germany is incorrect. One 
Karl Gorz of Dresden struck the medal and is proud of 
the fact, only complaining that the English had it copied I 
She says that it is quite hopeless to make the Germans 
understand that they began the war. They are firmly con- 
vinced to the contrary. It is not their fault. They honestly 
believe themselves to be right. It is the result of persistent 
propaganda. Only a few of the higher administrators ad- 
mit the truth. 

She went away to Princess M. about four and the Prince 
stayed and talked with me for an hour. He said that our 



PRINCE AND PRINCESS BLUCHER 103 

idea that Germany is not highly taxed must be based on 
inaccurate information. He has paid his capital levy of 
forty -five per cent without waiting the forty years allowed, 
and he is also paying fifty per cent income tax. He says 
that all pay heavy taxes, but where the money goes to 
nobody knows except the governing people who get hold 
of it. He says that his wages bill for 1500 acres is now 
14,000 marks a month instead of 4000. His foremen get 
thirty marks a day: his labourers one hundred and fifty 
a week with free board and lodging. He thinks that 
grass alone will pay before long and that a land strike is 
not improbable. He says that the effect of the collapse 
after the war had been appalling. Many of the old aristoc- 
racy cared for nothing but the army and could do nothing 
but soldiering. Now this was gone and they knew nothing 
else. Many had died of broken hearts or had shot them- 
selves: others had become doddering. Many of the old 
civilian officials were starving. He himself was employ- 
ing an Austrian Rittmeister in his stable. He found that 
everyone's nerves were still on edge in all classes and that 
no one could follow up an argument or even begin a job 
properly. It had all been too much for everybody. 

The Princess told me that the ex-Crown Princess of 
Germany lived near here. She is very popular and a very 
clever woman. She does not get on with the ex-C. P., but 
gives up her time to the care of his son with a view to 
his ultimate succession. They all feel that Germany is 
unfinished without an Emperor, and believe that when 
affairs are cleared up it will be either the C. P.'s son or 
Rupprecht of Bavaria who will be elected. Rupprecht 
could come back now as King of Bavaria, but says that he 
does not wish to break up Germany. When the democrats 
have finished the reparations the Empire will come back. 
It is not likely that the Kaiser himself will be restored. 
All the same they think him more sinned against than 
sinning, and excuse his flight to Holland by showing that 
his abdication had been announced at Berlin to quiet the 
people before he had decided upon it. The Prince told me 



104 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES) 

much about the present position of the best families in 
Bohemia and Austria, 

Major Piper has told me a great deal more to-day about 
his control job. He thinks that, though we know more 
than the Germans think, we still, on the whole, only know 
what the Germans tell us. The depots or bezirks com- 
mands, camouflaged as pension offices, may very likely 
have all the old lists of men, and a mere law would enable 
them to recall these men. There were lately found the full 
lists of the Posen district which had been sent elsewhere 
for safety when the Poles took over, and probably the 
Germans contemplate using the lists some day. He also 
wonders whether all the armament that cannot be found 
may not be kept in rolling stock and be sent away when a 
control inspection threatens to discover it. The train full 
of war material that came into Upper Silesia by mistake 
the other day and was there discovered came from Neisse, 
and undoubtedly some German officials were cognisant of 
it. Piper says that the Socialists are keeping a sharp eye 
on the Orgesch ^ and the potential Putsch ^ leaders, some of 
whom he pointed out to me, and will not allow them to re- 
new their exploits without resistance, but still their unoffi- 
cial organisations continue more or less with Government 
connivance and it is all very unsatisfactory. So I think, 
but when we withdraw our control there will be nothing to 
arrest German arming, and so we must either continue the 
control indefinitely or admit that Germany will arm and 
become strong again, and adopt the necessary precaution 
against that event. 

I am impressed by finding everywhere throughout 
Germany such a marked difference of mentality and of 
attitude between our officers and civilians and the corre- 
sponding French officials. While the latter are hard, dom- 
ineering, and unforgiving, we are impartial, patient, and 
not unsympathetic. The difference is marked everywhere 

' Organisation Escherich. So called from the name of its founder. 
* The Kapp Putsch was first given this name, and after Kapp had failed many 
who favoured it still kept on at work on the same lines. 



JOURNEY TO PRAGUE 105 

that I have been. We are not pro-Boche, though some 
French now speak of us as "les Boches Anglais." It is 
merely a racial and temperamental difference and reminds 
us in a somewhat uncomfortable way that we are racially 
and temperamentally more akin to the Teuton than the 
Latin. The Italians, it is true, generally share our mod- 
erate views, but for political reasons mainly, I think. 
Neither of us has had a huge area of territory ravaged as 
the Boches ravaged Northern France. That may ac- 
count for much, but it does not account for all. After 
all, the difference has not been unmarked on the Supreme 
Council. 

Dresden, Thursday, March 24, 1921. A most exasper- 
ating experience. Left early for Prague via Dresden. A 
surging mob of people in the train as I got in. People 
shoved against me fore and aft as I got into the narrow 
passage. As I thought they were fussing for seats, I did 
not fret, but found on gaining a seat that the rascals had 
relieved me of my letter-case with about £42 in German 
and French money and with my ticket and baggage regis- 
tration. Reported to the police, but hopeless to do any- 
thing. Fortunately I had put some Czecho-Slovak notes 
into my hat-box and so was able to pay my way, but lost 
my train at Dresden by having to explain all the circum- 
stances before I could get out my registered luggage. Great 
civility on the part of the Dresden railway authorities. 
Went to the Bellevue for the night. The Dresden people 
told me that it was a very expert band of international 
thieves. I was not the only sufferer in the train. The news 
comes of a considerable communistic activity over Central 
Germany. Before one trouble ends another begins. 

Prague, Good Friday, March 25, 1921. Train Dresden 
to Prague 11.55 to 4.30 Travelling by train on the Riviera 
is like travelling along a flute and looking out at the keys. 
Travelling from Dresden to the frontier is like a moving- 
picture show. The Elbe Valley here is fine, backed by 
high, precipitous sandstone cliffs topped with fir woods. 
Many barges working towed by tugs. A hectic time at 



106 CONFERENCES AND PLEBISCITES 

Tetschen,^ the frontier station, since one had to get every 
package passed by German and Czech and there was a 
rare crowd. Found fair rooms reserved for me at the Hotel 
de Saxe. Unpacked all my things for the first time since 
Paris. 

I am glad to be out of Germany, especially that flat, dull, 
dusty, ugly part of Germany where I have been. Dresden 
is a beautiful town, but anyone may have my share of 
Berlin and Silesia. I never knew a people so changed as 
the Germans since the war. I think that they are still 
dazed by their fall. They not only fell, they crashed. 
They cannot get over it, understand it, or account for it. 
They are fearfully humiliated and very sad and sorry for 
themselves. They indubitably regard our view, that they 
began the war, as a fiction, and consider that the chief 
duty of German statesmanship must be to expose that 
fiction. 2 They put down the original cause of the war to 
the encircling policy of England and avow that Russia 
mobilised first. So they regard the Versailles Treaty as 
shameless brutality, and their clever if coarse caricatur- 
ists represent poor Michel — the German peasant — as a 
sort of saint, a harmless unarmed creature exposed daily 
to fresh bullying by the Allied Powers. I doubt whether 
the men who fought in the war, and the older men who did 
not, will ever get over their experience of these years. 
Youth is more elastic, and it may be the German youth 
who may restore Germany to a high position. At present 
one hates talking to a German and a German hates talk- 
ing to us. If the soldier servants of Wauchope's staff get 
on like a house on fire with the Count's serving mddschens 
at his Schloss, it just ends there as a rule. We are civil 
when forced to talk. We do not seek to talk, but the con- 
trary. What we have to remember, too, if we wish to get 
paid, is that Germany is not a rich country except in 

* Not to be confused with Teschen. 

' Karl Kautsky did the reverse when he published Die Deutschen Dokuments 
zum Kru;g»-Ausbrach, containing the German diplomatic despatches with the 
Kaiser's marginal notes on the originals — a very damaging publication for the 
German case. 



THE GERMANS TO-DAY 107 

Westphalia and Upper Silesia. She is a poor country which 
has become rich by the industry and science of her people. 
If that industry be checked, we shall not be paid. We 
are not dealing with a Darius and his heaps of gold, but 
with a formerly industrious people who are only return- 
ing to work with nonchalance, doubting whether it is 
worth while with the figure of the reparations claims in 
their minds. I do not believe that they are dreaming of 
war, but some of them at one end are certainly longing for 
a restoration, and at the other end for a commune. In 
appearance, habits, taste, and so forth the average Ger- 
man remains the utterly uncongenial being that he always 
was to us, and this is all the more marked now that the 
aristocracy and gentry have retired to their properties to 
wait for better times. 



CHAPTER V 
A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

Prague — Palaces — Slovakia seeks autonomy — Two Englishmen on the 
Czechs — A conversation with Dr. Benes — He explains his policy — En- 
tentism and free trade — The German danger — Sir George Clerk — 
Czechs, Austrians, and Italians — Population, area, and industries of Czecho- 
slovakia — The political position — Dr. Krammarsch — The British Lega- 
tion — King Karl enters Hungary — The Czech Constitution — Agrarian 
reform — Abolition of nobility, orders, and titles — Commandeering of 
private houses — The Czecho-Slovak Army — Resom-ces of the State — 
The German fringe — What the Czechs want from us — General Husak, 
the War Minister — The King Karl adventure — The Czechs ready to 
move — Beauty of Prague — Conversation with the Prime Minister, 
M. Cerny — Another conversation with Dr. Ben^s — He thinks Germany 
can pay — His system of alliances — No formula for his confederation of 
Central Europe — A ten years' programme — Leave Prague for Vienna. 

Prague, March 26, 1921. Prague, Prag, Praha — I think I 
prefer the last. Spent the day in finishing my articles on 
Upper Silesia and in visiting the town. Saw Lady Clerk 
and Mr, Aveling at the attractive Legation house, rented 
for twelve years from Count Oswald Thun-Salm-Hohen- 
stein. Sir George and everybody else away till Tuesday. 
A fine town. The home of the rococo and the baroque. 
A new republic in an old capital, and much out of place 
there. The palaces of the Schwarzenbergs, Thuns, Clan 
Gallases, Kinskys, Czernins, etc., all either not inhabited, 
or commandeered by the State, or the owners living in a 
corner like Count Waldstein. All titles and orders abol- 
ished. The droshky man tells you how long you may stay 
when you call. Mine gave me ten minutes at our Legation 
and then sent in for me. I fancy that his feeling was that 
he had had the graciousness to hire me. For full-blooded 
tyranny commend me to a new republic. Republics aside, 
what a beautiful old town I Either Prague or Cracow is the 
capital of Central Europe, and I don't know which. The 
Palace and the Cathedral of St. Vitus on the hill across 
the river are superb and the lines noble. President 
Masaryk living in a wing of the Palace is still very ill and I 



PRAGUE PALACES 109 

shall not be able to see him. Various Government offices 
in the rest of the huge building. Only the Archbishop's 
Palace remains tenanted by the original incumbent. The 
Vatican must be laughing at the disappearance of all the 
earthly potentates while the Cardinal Archbishop keeps 
his Palace. But is even he quite safe? I hear that people 
already talk here of a Czech Church with all the services 
in Czech. The Czechs look to me a much more alert race 
than the Germans and with a better moral. They look 
gay and happy and confident, which is more than any 
Boche does now. Their women-folk are better-looking too. 

Went to the Foreign Ministry and saw M. Jean Broz. 
He has arranged for me to see M. Benes on Tuesday, and 
Benes is to arrange my visits to the Ministries of War, 
Finance, Commerce, and Interior. Made a prolonged 
visit to Wallenstein's Palace and am glad to have the 
picture in my mind of the home where that great general 
lived. I think the picture of Christ's head by Guido Reni 
must be an original; it is in the family pew of the chapel 
in the Palace. I liked Wallenstein's grotto bathroom where 
all the stones flung water at him. It is approached by a 
secret staircase from his rooms. I expect that anyone who 
fought campaigns in Central Europe must have discovered 
the want of baths. Why did Wallenstein's name become 
corrupted from Waldstein? Was it only to suit Schiller's 
verse? It is vexatious that the names of an Irish and 
Scottish officer who took part in the murder of the hero 
on the instigation of the Emperor should have been pre- 
served and should be told to all visitors. 

Easter Sunday, March 27, 1921. A pity to have arrived 
in this holiday season. Most people away and nobody 
working, not even the washerwomen. Sent off three 
articles to the Z). T. on Silesia. Read the local German 
paper, the Prague Tagblatt. Amused to see that a Pro- 
fessor of the Pressburg University writes an article de- 
manding the full-blooded State autonomy of Slovakia 
which numbers some three millions out of the fourteen 
millions of this country. He says that it is the new polit- 



no A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

ical gospel that each people should make its history with 
its own strength, its own will, and under its own respon- 
sibility. What a sweet revenge for Austria to find that 

Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em. 
Little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum. 

The Professor says that the Czechs and the Slovaks have a 
totally different character, spirit, and temperament. The 
Germans in Bohemia may say the same thing. We appear 
to be on the threshold of another period of tribal rule. 
How acute was Pershing's oflBcer at the end of the war 
who told me that he was reading "The History of the 
Future," and then produced, not Old Moore, but "The 
History of the Middle Ages"! There is another article on 
the Franco-Czech alliance which Benes is supposed to have 
signed in Paris. It is regarded in Berlin and Vienna as 
another part of the web of alliances which France, Italy, 
the Czechs, and the Serbs are spinning. It is supposed to 
destroy the Danubian Monarchy idea, and to mean that 
the new allies will consider a Habsburg restoration as a 
casus belli. France is said to have withdrawn from the 
scheme of a Danubian Monarchy. The new alliance, com- 
bined with the Little Entente, is creating a circle of allied 
states round Germany. But I suppose that Benes will tell 
me that it is all merely an accident insurance policy. We 
are still elementary people in Central Europe. News of the 
assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva does not 
seem to have reached us. 

Met at Zavrels, a nice little restaurant which Mr. 
Aveling recommended to me, Mr. Smith, whose Nobel 
firm have a concession for making all the explosives in 
the country, and Mr. Wilson, his Scottish technical man. 
Very nice fellows. We walked across the river and up 
many steep streets and stairs to the Castle and back 
by the Belvidere, a purely Italian building. We found a 
great football match of Danes versus Czechs going on and 
went in to look. The result was a tie. There must have 
been 14,000 people there. It is extraordinary how football 



TWO ENGLISHMEN ON THE CZECHS 111 

has caught on everywhere in Europe lately. My two ac- 
quaintances told me much of the people here. They did 
not see why the new State should not get on, as it was in 
the happy position of being self-contained in all raw 
materials, ^ both food and minerals, and had besides much 
to export, notably sugar. It had coal, iron, industries of 
all kinds, and very fairly good railway facilities, while the 
barges went down to the Elbe and thence to the sea at 
Hamburg. They find bribery much too common and put 
it down to the ridiculously low salaries. They do not rate 
the Czech soldier high. They say that German and Czech 
mix as little as possible and cordially detest each other. 
They say that the present Government is one of perma- 
nent officials, no party having a clear majority. Also that 
the Czech Catholics are aiming at a Church of their own 
with the Czech lingo instead of Latin. It is quite on the 
cards that the people may want a king some day. They 
find that liberty only means that they are still conscripted 
and made to pay heavier in taxes than under the Austro- 
Hungarian Empire. They are a sober, steady, hard-work- 
ing people, and not at all warlike. They are still mortally 
afraid of Hungary. Wages here are much as in Silesia, 
one hundred and fifty crowns a week for an agricultural 
labourer. 

The Czechs are very musical as Kubelik's compatriots 
should be. The Germans say that in every Czech cradle 
is placed a violin string and a ten heller piece. If the 
baby selects the string, he becomes a musician, if the 
heller piece, he becomes a thief. It is sure to be one or 
the other according to the German. To the German the 
Czech in the past was a hewer of wood and a drawer of 
water. Now he is master. For how long.f* The Germans 
say that he has never been able to govern and never will 
be. But some Germans cannot really believe it, as they had 
a journalistic competition the other day to decide whether 
Germans should learn Czech or not. By a sixty per cent 
majority the vote was that they should learn it. Some of our 

* Not quite correct — some thirty per cent of the wheat comes from outside. 



112 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

people who wish to get on here will have to learn it too. I 
have not heard of one Englishman or foreigner who can 
speak it. I am told that there are not a dozen English in 
the country. There was one Dutchman who could speak it. 
He was the Dutch Minister here. They would not allot 
him a residence, so he left a vice-consul at Briinn and 
went away. Then he came back and was so insistent with 
Dr. Benes that the latter gave orders for the wing of some 
palace to be evacuated and given to him. The Dutchman 
went to the department concerned and the head of it sent 
for the official who was occupying the wing. He told him 
in French that he had to clear out, and then added in 
Czech, which he supposed the Dutchman would not 
know, "This is all humbug, I am not going to allow you to 
be turned out. We will gain time and wear out the Dutch- 
man." The Dutchman then blandly observed that he 
knew Czech and understood what had passed. Far from 
being overcome, the head of the department told him that 
his action was tres inconvenante and that it showed a grave 
want of tact in a Minister who knew Czech not to make 
the fact known! 

Tuesday, March 29, 1921. Went to the Foreign Ministry 
to see Dr. Benes. ^ An agreeable man with a clever face. 
Impeccably honest, wholly without vanity, clear and most 
frank. Such was my first impression of the man. I told 
him that I considered him the defence minister of Czecho- 
slovakia and not General Husak. When he asked why, I 
pulled out my map of modern Europe and asked how a 
country like his, one thousand kilometres long and not 
two hundred broad, surrounded by five potentially hostile 
States, was going to be defended by anything but a Foreign 
Minister. He agreed, and said that this had been his view 
from the first. 

He then gave me a clear and interesting sketch of his 
policy. When the Armistice came about he said that 
Czecho-Slovakia was surrounded by enemies or dubious 

^ Five months later Dr. Benes became Prime Minister of a Parliamentary 
Government, retaining his portfolio of Foreign Affairs. 



CONVERSATION WITH DR. BENfiS 113 

friends, so he felt that, unless he moved and worked on a 
settled plan, all the Treaties might come to nothing and 
the legend — as he called it — of the Balkanisation of 
Central and Eastern Europe might come true. He had left 
German-Austria and Hungary to the last. He had made a 
definite plan and had steadily followed out a fixed policy. 
He had first made a binding political and military alliance 
with Jugo-Slavia and then a less comprehensive arrange- 
ment with Roumania. With Poland, which he evidently 
regarded as a dangerous and fickle neighbour, he was now 
quite friendly, and he had made good terms with Italy, 
terms about to be strengthened as he hoped by the meeting 
at Porto Rosa. He would not attend that meeting, as he 
wanted it to be confined to economics. If the politicos went 
they would quarrel about the causes of the war or some- 
thing else, so he preferred to stand out. He was quite 
satisfied with his Paris talks and I think has secured him- 
self on that side against Polish risks. He has arranged 
commercial treaties with France, Italy, England, Ger- 
many, and Austria, while by the recent meeting at Bruck 
he has initiated an understanding with Hungary, and has, 
as it were, reintroduced this State into the European field 
of politics. 

He had refused to march against Russia in the earlier 
days because after the war nobody wanted to march and 
adventures were not to his liking. His method of combating 
Bolshevism was by economics and social reforms, but for 
these the State must be safe first, and he thought that he 
had made it safe in two years by his treaties and agree- 
ments including the Little Entente which he had joined. 

Is it really as good as the old confederation under Aus- 
tria? I asked, and how do you propose to break down all 
these interminable and harassing barriers of frontiers and 
customs wherever one goes.^* He thought that an economic 
confederation would take the place of the old political link. 
He had begun by strict customs barriers in and out because 
all had to be organised and consolidated. But very soon 
he meant to turn this system upside down by opening up 



114 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

trade in every way and by only making a few exceptions to 
the general rule. It is easier for you than others, I said, 
because you are nearly self-contained. Yes, he said, and 
our position now is superior to that of any other country 
in this part of Europe. Oil? I asked. Yes, it had just been 
opened up in Slovakia. It was still all a question of tariffs 
and especially communications. He found all ready to deal, 
and was very satisfied with the results of all his missions. 
He doubted that we could do anything with Russia for 
twenty years. 

In view of the possible recurrence of the German danger, 
with which might come danger from Austria and Hungary, 
he felt that Czecho-SIovakia's interests were bound up 
with those of the Western Powers — England, France, 
Italy — and he had proceeded on those lines. I said that 
instead of being the cartridge of dynamite that someone 
had called Czecho-Slovakia, it seemed to me a centre for 
radiating the warmth of peace, but I supposed that he had 
many dijQSculties internally, and mentioned the Germans, 
Magyars, the Slovaks, and the religious question. Yes, he 
said, we have 2,800,000 Germans, but on account of the 
natural frontiers of Bohemia and on economic grounds they 
could not be given to a defeated Germany. They were 
somewhat troublesome. The Magyars were 600,000. Are 
they not rather a weakness to you? Yes, they were, and he 
thought in time there might be room for a rearrangement 
here. As for the Slovaks, they were uneducated and strong 
Roman Catholics. The Church meant much to them, but 
much less to the rather free-thinking Czechs, who pre- 
ferred to have a National Church. He had seen Cardinal 
Gasparri, and had told him that they could settle it be- 
tween them, for he thought that it would be unwise to start 
a Kultur-Kampf at this stage, and said that he did not 
intend to tackle the question yet awhile. Slovakia's real 
needs are met by a comprehensive educational policy. He 
thought that the greatest danger to Czecho-Slovakia was 
its protuberance into Germany, and the encircling po- 
sition of Germany and Austria round its western frontiers 



SIR GEORGE CLERK 115 

combined with the presence of Germans within. He said 
that German-Austria had tyrannised over the Czechs, who 
had no share in the old Government. The Church had 
made itself the instrument of this tyranny, and neither 
could be forgiven by the Czechs. 

Lady Clerk and Mr. Aveling lunched with me, and 
afterwards I went up to the Legation and saw Sir George, 
who was just back. We had a good talk. I found him on 
the whole disposed to believe that Czecho-Slovakia would 
survive. There were great difficulties, but the people were 
confronting them bravely. Benes was politically the child 
of Masaryk; but he was not yet a great political figure in 
the country. He was a tremendous worker and his value 
was fully appreciated. He had certainly raised the prestige 
and influence of Czecho-Slovakia greatly, and Sir George 
could not but admit that both at Prague and even at 
Vienna matters had improved during the past year. We 
discussed the sanctions. Sir George had been instructed to 
ask Czecho-Slovakia to impose the fifty per cent plan. It 
was not certain whether it would go down here, for it would 
seriously affect trade and Germany might make reprisals. 

Studied the press again. The Bruck talk has resulted 
in an agreement to group all the questions pending from 
the Treaties into categories, namely into four commissions 
for political, financial, economic, and transport questions 
in order to regulate the accord between the two States in 
accordance with the Peace Treaties. This practically ad- 
mits that the Peace Treaties will be applied and that the 
hostile and distrustful attitude of the two States may 
change into a better feeling. An atmosphere of peace and 
confidence may return if both sides comprehend the inter- 
national position of Central Europe, and if the Hungarian 
Premier, Count Teleki, and M. Gratz, the Foreign Min- 
ister, terminate the attitude of open opposition which has 
hitherto been maintained towards the execution of the 
Peace Treaties. 

The Czech-Italian economic accord also helps matters 
on. It is for five years and contains general rules for the 



116 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

normal economic relations of the two countries. Tariffs 
have not yet been inserted in a convention, since in both 
countries tariffs are under revision. The question of a 
differential tariff for Trieste, Czecho-Slovakia could not 
agree to, but the principle has been adopted for merchan- 
dise reaching Trieste under the Czecho-Slovak flag which 
will help to create the future Czecho-Slovak merchant 
fleet. Czecho-Slovakia also gains advantages in the use of 
docks and the installations at Trieste. All these matters 
will help on affairs at the Conference at Porto Rosa be- 
tween the States successors to the Austrian dominions. 

As for Austria, Czecho-Slovakia is rather contemptuous 
of the Austrian lamentations and inspired articles and asks 
why Austria does not help herself. She thinks that Austria 
is really beginning to look up, and that her good means of 
communication, favourable situation, and the develop- 
ment of her industry and resources make it foolish to de- 
spair. Czecho-Slovakia does not add, as she might, that 
Prague has no decent hotels, no pleasures, no meeting- 
places for business men, and that Vienna has all these ad- 
vantages and is attracting both capital and industry. 

Czecho-Slovakia is the only State in Europe whose 
exports to the United States exceed its imports. The 
Czecho-Slovakian census of February last not yet out. It 
is based on nationalities and not on mere language as for- 
merly, so it will make the real situation much more clear. 
The last Census of 1910 gave 13,811,755 inhabitants. The 
territory of the Republic has 142,745 square kilometres. 
Coal is most important for the Czecho-Slovak industries. 
In 1920, 395 independent industries exploited mines of 
which 150 lignite and the rest coal. There were 126,000 
miners of whom 75,000 employed in coal mines. The out- 
put increased twelve per cent over 1919. The miners worked 
5.24 days a week, but the output per man decreased. A 
new and special institution deals with all the questions 
connected with the working and the use of coal. This is 
called the Uhelna Rada or Coal Council, and M. Kovalik, 
the Minister of Public Works, addressed its first meeting 



INDUSTRIES OF CZECHO-SLOVAKIA 117 

on March 8. In 1920 Czecho-Slovakia produced thirty 
million tons, namely eleven million coal and nineteen of 
lignite. Czecho-Slovakia has an industrial crisis, and 
second-grade coal is not so much demanded. Most of the 
industrial enterprises formerly used the good steam coal 
of Silesia. Without it the cost of production is greater 
Czecho-Slovakia took 6,460,000 tons from Upper Silesia 
in 1913, and one million tons from Westphalia. Now she 
only receives 6,200,000 tons yearly under the Treaty re- 
cently made with Germany. After deducting five million 
tons for exports and the same for use of the mines, the 
twenty million remaining of Czecho-Slovak production 
is not enough for industries and domestic use. Therefore 
production must be increased and Upper Silesia more 
drawn upon. Czecho-Slovakia is in no hurry for national- 
isation. It is considered not a political question^ but one of 
economics which can only be settled by an accord between 
all the interested parties. 

The present Cabinet in Czecho-Slovakia is a provisional 
Government and not an ordinary parliamentary Govern- 
ment created by a majority. There is no regular party 
majority on which a Government can count. This is 
mainly due to the crisis in Czecho-Slovak socialism which 
is broken up into eight groups. It is therefore not a normal 
position, but the Government have got through much use- 
ful work, and revenue nearly balances with expenditure, 
which is quite the exception in Central Europe. M. Englis, 
the late Finance Minister, also did a good thing when he 
suspended the issue of paper notes without cover. Czecho- 
slovakia has shown herself determined to pursue a policy 
of peace and conciliation with her neighbours. The Social 
Democrats have always supported the Government on 
essential questions, and the attempt of the Communists 
to destroy the authority of the State ended in a fiasco. The 
Germans of the Czecho-Slovak Republic have not yet 
evolved the definite character of their relations with the 
Czechs. Some German agrarians have given hopeful 
promises of collaboration, but the German Nationalists 



118 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

have shown systematic opposition and no practical result 
has come from the conferences between the Czecho-Slovak 
and German Social-Democratic parties. In Czech politics 
the "Council of Five" (or the representatives of the Social 
Democrats of the Right, the National Socialists, the 
Agrarians, the National Democrats, and the Catholics) 
exercises a great influence in Parliament. Thanks to it the 
Government has been saved on many occasions. The re- 
search of a stable party majority is highly desirable. Note 
that the return of the clearing houses of Vienna, Pesth, 
and Prague in 1913 gave figures to show that the amount 
of business done at Vienna was seven times, and at Pesth 
three and one-half times, the amount done at Prague. In 
1919, however, the amount done at Vienna and Pesth com- 
bined was only one-third that of Prague, the figures being 
12,137,419,300 Czecho-Slovak crowns for Vienna and 
Pesth, and 41,535,733,000 Czecho-Slovak crowns for 
Prague. 

Wednesday, March 30, 1921. The Clerks having most 
hospitably invited me to the Legation, I moved there this 
morning and found it a delightful haven. Many floors with 
fine rooms and terraces, and on about the fourth floor, 
where I seem to be, comes the garden and behind it the 
wall and ramparts of the Royal Palace. A perfect and quite 
unique place, most suitable for fetes and entertainments. 
The Krammarsches lunched. He was the first Prime 
Minister of the Republic, a strong man with a powerful 
physique and decided views. She is Russian and must 
have been handsome. He told us of his twenty-six months' 
imprisonment in a small damp cell, and of his condemna- 
tion to death, and reflections whether he would choose 
hanging or shooting. It seems better to be shot in these 
regions because hanging is only a crude form of strangula- 
tion. He is very pro-Reactionary Russia and does not like 
Benes's policy which is apparently to let anyone come here 
who likes and to trade with them like the England of L. G. 
to-day. Lockhart, the Commercial Secretary at the Le- 
gation, with his great knowledge of Russia, does not think 



DR. KRAMMARSCH 119 

it will make any difference whether we trade with them 
or not. He thinks it would have been best to have done 
nothing at all when Russia went out of the war. Kram- 
marsch cannot understand how the England of Gladstone 
can trade with men whose hands are stained with blood 
and whose pockets are filled with stolen money. He was 
most amused at the Italian idea that they won the war. 
He thought that the Czechs and others who wished to 
break with Austria had won the war. It was their work in 
the interior and the mot d'ordre passed to the front that 
started the degringolade. There was suddenly no front. 
The Italian talk of prisoners and guns captured was all 
eye-wash. He said it was a wonderful time in Bohemia. 
One has yet to find the country that does not think it won 
the war. 

This morning there had come the news of the ex-Kaiser 
Karl's visit in a motor car to Budapest on Easter Sunday. 
He went with some reactionary friends to the house 
of a reactionary Bishop on the Austrian frontier, and 
thence motored to Budapest. A very silly move and the 
reason is not yet fully explained. Krammarsch calls him 
"un fou." He seems to have had a chilly reception by the 
Hungarian Premier and to have returned. As Italy, the 
Czechs, and the Serbs are all in league against a Habsburg 
restoration, the Putsch was silly. Krammarsch thinks that 
Germany will become a Great Power again soon and the 
arbiter of Europe. He thinks we are giving Russia into Ger- 
many's hands. Sir G. took me to Ressource, the "Jockey 
Club" of the Ur-Adler or primeval nobility. We played 
Bridge with Prince Mansfeld and his brother, then ad- 
journed to the Legation to dine, and went on playing till 
1.30 A.M. The Ressource has been largely commandeered 
and the members restricted to two rooms, much as if the 
Marlborough had to give up its first floor to Mr. Smillie. 
The primeval nobility express primeval sentiments on the 
subject. 

Thursday, March 31, 1921. Occupied in talks with Sir 
George and Mr. Lockhart, the commercial attache, about 



120 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

the politics, finance, commerce, and interior policy of this 
country. Needless to say that they are both exceedingly 
well-informed. I also ran through the Legislative Summary 
of the Parliament, or rather the Assembly, since the Revo- 
lution, i.e., from October 20, 1918, to May 26, 1920. Very 
instructive to see how a Socialistic Republic regulates its 
affairs. The Constitutional Law of February 29, 1920, 
seems to me a good law, carefully elaborated, with many 
reasonable safeguards and enough authority left to the 
President to secure the safety of the State. There are two 
Houses, most power residing in the lower. I have not found 
a new Republic yet which ventures on Single Chamber 
rule. 

The Assembly in its salad days practically declared all 
land to belong to the State, and as early as November 9, 

1918, passed a law on the seizure of large properties. Other 
laws on agrarian reforms followed. The Czechs were in a 
hurry to repair what they considered wrong done to them 
during the past centuries regarding the possession of land, 
and protest that they did so without too radical changes 
and without too cruel injustice to existing rights. It is 
questionable whether this reservation is justified. The 
agrarian laws include measures for the protection of small 
farmers, but the law of November 9 is most drastic, and so 
is the law of April 16, 1919, modified by that of July 11, 

1919. By this legislation the State assumes the rights over 
all domains in excess of one hundred and fifty hectares of 
cultivable land and two hundred and fifty of land in gen- 
eral. On seizure the State acquires the right of possession, 
and the alleged spirit of the law is that the land must be 
given first of all to those able to farm it. A further law of 
February 12, 1920, deals with the exploitation of land 
seized. The compensation is fixed at pre-war prices, but, 
as at present rate of exchange the value of the crown had 
depreciated ten times, the compensation is largely fictitious. 
How vitally this restriction of landholding to one hundred 
and fifty hectares affects Bohemia may be judged by the 
fact that the largest landed proprietor, Prince Schwartzen- 



AGRARIAN REFORM 121 

berg, owns 700,000 acres and employs 30,000 people. There 
are many other great landowners, and so what is involved 
is an agricultural revolution, for which the only excuse to 
be made is that it possibly prevented a Jacquerie. What 
with levies, taxes, and seizures it is reckoned that Schwart- 
zenberg \^all have to pay thirty million more crowTis than 
the value of his property ! But it must be added that con- 
fiscation has not been largely carried out yet, and most of 
the old nobles continue to reside on their estates. Only in 
a few cases have farms been seized and industries depending 
on them have had to close down. To change great estates 
into small farms means, of course, any amount of new 
farm buildings to be constructed, and the petty marketing 
of the small farmer means a wholly different set of agri- 
cultural economics from that of the great estates. 

Another blow at the old German-Bohemians is the law 
of December 10, 1918, which abolishes the nobility, and all 
orders and titles granted as honorific distinctions except 
for science and letters. Our O.B.E.'s will now know what 
a socialistic government will do with them when it comes. 

Further laws of 1919 have the effect of enabling the 
Government to seize private town houses to provide 
lodgings for those who need them and to secure Govern- 
ment offices for all the new Ministries and the Adminis- 
tration, the numbers of which here are said to be equal to 
those which formerly ran the whole Austrian Empire. 
This power has been very extensively used in Prague, where 
an immense number of great palaces exist, seldom tenanted 
by their owners during the Empire, as Francis Joseph and 
the Court scarcely ever came to Bohemia. The Palaces 
have mostly been taken over, and the owners allowed a few 
rooms in a wing. But the same thing has happened to the 
houses of the bourgeois classes who are similarly served. 
I really wonder whether Article 112 of the Constitution, 
which guarantees inviolability of domicile, is not the finest 
piece of sarcasm ever embodied in legislation. 

Another point which interests me is the divorce law, as 
one sees how the Socialist looks at it. In the Law of May 



122 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

22, 1919, there are nine causes for divorce. The last two are 
"grave incompatibility of character in the couple" and 
"invincible aversion." In the latter case an application 
can be made a year after the petitioner has lived sep- 
arately. 

The Army is eventually to be organised on the Militia 
basis. Military service is obligatory and equal for all: 
there are no exemptions. Men serve from the age of 
twenty-one to fifty, and professional soldiers are liable to 
the age of sixty even if retired. A man can join at the date 
which suits him between January 1 in the year when he 
becomes twenty and the 30th of December in the year in 
which his twenty-second year ends. Regular service lasts 
fourteen months, but men called up in 1920, 1921, and 1922 
serve for a supplementary period of ten months, and those 
of 1923-25 for four months more. There is a first reserve up 
to the age of forty and a second over forty. Reserve service 
may mean four training periods each of fourteen weeks. 
The peace effective for the four years after 1920 is fixed by 
law at 150,000 men. Voluntary engagements are permitted. 
I believe that one hundred and sixty-six battalions are 
maintained in peace, but are very weak. 

For 1920 the whole State expenditure was estimated at 
10,416 million crowns and receipts at 7750 millions. The 
Government was authorised to procure the sum necessary 
to meet all deficits up to 2666 million crowns. 

Now if we turn to the commercial and industrial side 
of the life here, it is certain that this little State is the most 
viable of all in this part of the world in its industrial present 
and future. It comprises about three-quarters of the riches 
of the former Austria, and though it is short by about 
thirty per cent of the annual foodstuffs required, it has al- 
most everything else needed for itself and much over for 
exportation. It is a good going business concern, but as it 
lives by its industries it competes with us, and owing to the 
high rate of exchange it cannot buy our goods, while the 
control of the Government over imports and the cheap 
production here make our merchants wary. There is 



THE GERMAN FRINGE 123 

scarcely any trade between Czecho-Slovakia and the coun- 
tries at the top of the tree in the exchange scale. We might 
find a large field for banking here, but nothing is done, and 
the Germans are nearly sure to seize this outlet before long. 
There is no doubt that the western end of the country and 
all the fringe of land running along the Czecho-Slovak side 
of the Erz Gebirge are the richest parts of the country and 
contain the greater part of the most promising industries. 
This part is German, and the attitude of Czechs to Ger- 
mans, and of the latter to the Czechs, is not friendly. But the 
German industrialists recognise that they profit from being 
Czechish subjects, since they can promise themselves pro- 
tection against other German competition. All the same, 
it is not to be denied that Czecho-Slovakia without this 
German fringe would not have the good prospects it has 
now and might not be able to go on. Yet this eventuality 
does not suggest to the Czechs, who are suffering from 
swelled heads just now, that they should make advances 
towards the Germans of Bohemia. The Czechs rather play 
the Germans the game that the Germans formerly played 
them, and it is dear price to be paid some day for the sake 
of paltry revenge. The aristocratic Germans sulk in their 
homes and wring their hands. They hate the Czechs whom 
they have always considered an inferior race. They never 
even learned the Czech language, and now they refuse 
diplomatic appointments which Benes offers them and 
take little part in public life. There are in fact faults on 
both sides. Perhaps common interests will hold the two 
together for a time, but I do not see a recovered Germany 
failing to attract their Bohemian brother Germans now 
that the old German-Austria is in such low water, and the 
old Empire is no more. One sees that the Peace Conference 
could not give beaten Germany a strip of Austria, but still 
the mountains on the west are not the dividing line between 
the races by any means. A broad belt as deep in as Pilsen 
is German. Were a plebiscite taken here, a large German 
majority would be assured. 
Dined at the Legation with Lady Clerk. Sir George out 



124 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

at a students' dinner. A pleasant talk afterwards of pic- 
tures, painters, books and writers. 

Friday, April 1, 1921. This morning went to the Min- 
istry of Commerce and then to the branch for foreign trade 
to discuss various matters with Dr. Fafe and Dr. Peroutka. 
I find that in 1919 Czecho-Slovakia sent 238 milHon crowns 
worth of merchandise to England and bought 328 millions 
from us. Czecho-Slovakia also sent 800 millions worth to 
Germany in 1919 and took 780 millions worth from Ger- 
many. I discussed the sanctions question. In so far as the 
fifty per cent plan serves as a protectionist tariff against 
competition in Germany, it will please the German Bo- 
hemians who compete against her, but there is a risk that 
a policy of this kind may interrupt Czecho-Slovak trade 
by the Elbe to Hamburg and elsewhere. Czecho-Slovakia 
might become almost an island in a hostile Central Europe 
and the Czechs are not in a hurry to run risks. Looked 
into what the Czechs can send us that we want — or don't 
want. It includes sugar, malt, hops, mineral waters, beer, 
fruit, timber, spirit, gloves, caoline, pulp, paper of all kinds, 
glass, china, clothing and underclothing, collars, cuffs, 
neckties, wooden toys, wood mouldings and frames, and 
bent wood furniture. Czecho-Slovakia wants from us tea, 
coffee, spices, copra, soya beans, oleaginous seeds, hides 
and skins, mother-of-pearl, india-rubber, resin, copal, vege- 
table wax, ferro-manganese, pyrites, tin and nickel, cotton, 
wool, jute, fine cotton yarn over No. 70, combed woollen 
yarns, fine cloth, iron and steel, textile machines, machine 
tools, soap, chemicals, soda, and mineral oils. A good long 
list for our traders. I find that the Czecho-Slovak iron ore 
is not good enough for the best steel and that Austria has 
always taken better iron from Sweden and Lorraine. About 
sixty to seventy-five per cent of the former Austrian indus- 
tries are now concentrated in Czecho-Slovakia. 

There lunched at the Legation to-day young Masaryk, 
son of the President, General Husak, Minister of War, 
General Mittelhauser, Pelle's successor in Czecho-Slovakia, 
and his A.D.C. Picot. Madame Husak, a pretty and agree- 



THE KING KARL ADVENTURE 125 

able woman, also there. Lady Clerk, who is a very pretty 
woman with a fine figure, makes a perfect hostess. Husak 
told me that up to yesterday he had regarded the ex- 
Kaiser's escapade as an operetta, but the news to-day was 
more serious. Karl's statement that he would never leave 
Hungary alive might be bombast, but the declaration had 
been launched and it might be that Colonel Lehar, whom 
Husak described as the best officer in Hungary, was pushing 
him on. The ex-officers in Hungary numbered 30,000 and 
there were battalions composed entirely of officers. The men 
called up for training were also all told off to certain duties 
on mobilisation, and he thought that 70,000 could rap- 
idly be assembled and that Hungary would not lack for 
men and arms. Czecho-Slovakia kept quite calm because 
within a week some twelve divisions could be collected with 
a formidable artillery, and the Jugo-Slavs would move too. 
We should know in a few days. It was a bad sign that 
Julius Andrassy appeared to be in the movement, as he was 
clever and experienced. The telephone wires to Pesth had 
been cut, but news came by car from Pesth to the Czecho- 
slovak frontier in two hours. Austria might be in the 
movement. Clerk doubts this, but he says that the Hun- 
garians would not like the summons of Benes and might 
fight. Husak says that Horthy is jealous of Karl, but that 
Teleki's attitude is less certain. Mittelhauser generally 
shares Husak's views and regards the position as rather 
serious. Husak thinks that the state of readiness of the 
Czecho-Slovak Army is not known in Hungary, and he 
says that his men are war-experienced and the young 
officers trained in France are good. Husak asked me to 
visit Skoda where I should see the German plans for its 
ten-year programme. 

In the afternoon called on M. Courget, the French Min- 
ister, who was very agreeable and we talked Czechish 
problems for an hour. Later Sir G. talked on the telephone 
to Vienna which told him that all was quiet and that Hoh- 
ler at Pesth reported that everyone there was against Karl 
who is still apparently at Steinamanger on the Austro- 



U6 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

Hungarian frontier. I decided that if anything happened 
it would be best for me to accompany the Czechs, and 
that if it all fizzled out it was not worth while to go to 
Steinamanger. I hope that Burnham will agree. Dined 
with the Italian Minister, Sir G. and Lady Clerk, Miss 
Boyle, a capable lady on the Legation staff, Aveling, Lock- 
hart, and Chichester, and Michiels, the Dutch Minister, 
son of my old friend Baron Michiels at The Hague. A 
pleasant talk and we played Bridge. 

Saturday, April 2, 1921. This wonderful Italian weather 
continues. My window at the Legation gives a view over 
the garden and up the walls and slopes of the Castle. The 
silence is profound. The early morning sun colours all the 
walls with a soft pink shade. There is a simplicity about 
this front of the Palace that is wanting in Prague, the 
baroque generally. Certainly one cannot deny the beauty 
of Prague. The view from the eastern end of Karl IV 
Bridge looking west has perhaps no equal in any other 
capital. The baroque style may seem extravagant, eastern, 
laboured, and heavy, but when a whole town seems six- 
teenth and seventeenth century, as if it had become archi- 
tecturally passionate and disorderly all at once, one for- 
gives a good deal. It is strongly infected with Easternism. 
It is too unquiet for English taste. One likes it against 
one's will. But one likes it because it is not mean, nor even 
prettily rococo, but in the grand manner and virile in its 
way. Compared with an old English town Prague reminds 
me of a Middle Ages dining-hall covered with barons of 
beef, boar's heads, and roast swans. The appetites may 
have been coarse, but they were those of strong men. I ex- 
pect it is a town to remember, and one would remember it 
better were the hotels here anything better than dirty, ill- 
served pot-houses. 

This Legation is a joy. There seems to be no end to the 
floors, rooms, strange winding staircases, concealed and 
otherwise, and terraces and gardens where one least 
expects them. Of course there is a ghost, Matthias of the 
Clan Thun, who steals up the spiral staircase, rattles at 



CONVERSATION WITH M. CERNY 127 

your door, shrieks with laughter, rings bells, and altogether 
behaves himself as a good ghost should. 

Went to see the P.M. Monsieur Cerny before lunch and 
had to take the Czech Secretary at the Legation, M. Bu- 
bola, with me. He translates very well. Cerny of the Benes 
type, shortish, serious, trusted, and courteous. I fancy 
that he thought it was a press interview which would echo 
through Europe the next minute, as he returned prim 
official answers and looked horribly alarmed. I ought to 
have told him that he could speak plainly. A go-between 
is not of much use in a talk after all. A conversation 
through a third party is ridiculous. We discussed Czecho- 
slovak legislation, especially the agrarian policy and the 
sequestration of houses, and he gave me to understand 
that this legislation dated from the early revolutionary 
days and would be much amended and not carried out in 
practice. He told me that the sanctions against Germany, 
which Czecho-Slovakia is said to have adopted, could only 
be carried out within the limits assigned by Czecho-Slo- 
vakia's special position regarding Germany. He knew that 
the Deutsch-Bohmer nobles had many relations with Eng- 
land and did not think their fears of complication justified. 
He would be very glad for the German nobles to come into 
the Government if they became one of the regular parlia- 
mentary parties. Not much of interest, but he said that 
his one aim was peace. 

Counts Ledebur and Kinsky lunched with Sir George 
and me. We had a good talk about political matters. 
Ledebur speaks boldly in the Senate. He is one of the few 
who has taken up the cudgels in the interests of the great 
nobles. He speaks in German, but the speaker has to 
speak in Czech always. He tells me that they — Ger- 
mans — are four millions in Bohemia, but we must wait 
for the census returns. His view is that Austria and Czecho- 
slovakia must eventually come within the German consti- 
tution, and the other parts of old Austria in an Eastern 
confederation. Sir George and Aveling went off to shoot 
with Prince Colloredo. I was asked, but am still full of my 



128 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

Silesian chill. Chichester took us to the Russian ballet. 
Poor. We came back and played Bridge. A young Murray, 
son of the Oxford Regius Professor of Greek, struck me as a 
boy with a future. He is here with the Students' Con- 
ference. Pretty good for a youth of that age to stand up 
and speak boldly in an International Assembly and in 
French as well as English. 

Sunday, April 3, 1921. Went to say good-bye to Dr. 
Benes at the Foreign Office. They do not revel much in 
week-ends here and the hours on Sunday are from eight to 
eight with two hours for meals. 

I began by telling Dr. Benes that the P.M. seemed rather 
alarmed at my conversation with him yesterday, and 
I begged B. to tell him that I did not publish my talks in 
the press without sending copies to Ministers concerned, 
so he need not be anxious. All that I wanted was to know 
the views of Ministers for my personal guidance. Then I 
told B. that in our last talk we had restricted ourselves 
mainly to Czecho-Slovak policy, and that I wished before 
I left to know his views of various aspects of foreign policy 
in a larger sense. For instance there was this question of 
the sanctions, concerning which I told him my views, 
namely, that they were dangerous and ineffective and 
that I preferred the blockade to end the thing quickly. I 
was interested to find that B. was entirely of the same 
opinion. He said that Germany could pay, but did not 
want to pay. She had concocted a Bankruptcy Budget to 
mislead us and appeal to our pity. But she had offered B. 
two thousand milliards of marks as a loan when his 
application to France for one hundred million francs had 
failed, and she had also made a similar offer to Rou mania 
which might or might not be accepted. The Czecho- 
slovak Finance Minister had wanted to accept, but B. 
would not let him, as such dependence on Germany would 
be bad for Czecho-Slovakia and besides disloyal to the Al- 
lies. But the offers showed that Germany's plea of poverty 
was all gammon. 

B., in Germany's place, would have signed and would 



ANOTHER TALK WLTR DR. BENES 129 

have done his best to pay for one, two, or three years. He 
would also have asked for an Allied Financial Control 
Commission to prove Germany's good-will and to satisfy 
the Allies if, in fact, Germany could not pay. All the ques- 
tions pending between the Allies and Germany were largely 
psychologic. He believed that the blockade was the best 
means of closing the accounts and he was ready to share 
in it. Countries like Holland, Switzerland, and Austria 
could be roped in by being compelled to declare the origin 
of all goods sent abroad. B. thought that in a month or 
two this course would produce a surrender. He did not 
deny the influence of an occupation, as it might prove to 
the Germans that they had been beaten, but he preferred 
the blockade, because it was not easy to say when the 
occupation would cease. Czech o-Slovakia was prepared 
to join in any virile measures, but the present sanctions 
promise to injure us without effecting any useful purpose. 
Entirely my view. 

I then asked B. to allow me to submit another point 
to him. I said that England had been very friendly with 
Austria in the past and that even up to 1878 we had found 
ourselves often acting with her. Austria's illiberal policy 
had alienated England afterwards, and finally had come 
the smash, but all through the nineteenth century our 
men of affairs like Palmerston had regarded Austria as 
the pivot of the balance of power. What I wanted to know 
was whether B.'s policy, which he had before explained to 
me, gave the hope that it might restore the lost pivot on 
which peace had long turned. 

B. thought it would. The system of understanding and 
alliances had for its eventual aim the creation of the 
United States of Central Europe within which should 
come Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia, Roumania, Poland, 
Bulgaria, Austria, and Hungary. It was not a case of a 
fresh Empire. It was a political and economic federation, 
based on democratic principles, each State preserving its 
full sovereign rights, and the various States arranging 
matters with each other by mutual agreement. The for- 



130 A STATESMAN WITH A POLICY 

mula for the Confederation had not yet emerged, but the 
aim was clear; and he considered, as he had told me before, 
that he could count on ten to fifteen years of tranquillity 
for carrying out these great designs. 

I said that these things seemed to me of extraordinary 
interest and asked whether B. had spoken of them to any 
Western statesman. He said that he had not. All his 
available time had been given up to the settlement of 
practical matters as the different points came up, and 
each visit of his to the great capitals had been fully 
occupied, while at home every sort of mesquinerie had to 
be dealt with. But he hoped to go to London soon, and I 
suggested that he should explain his ideas to L. G. over a 
map, as I thought that he would rise to such a big idea. 
It was B.'s intention, I learned, to do so. We talked for 
about an hour and a half. He was sometimes interrupted 
by telephone messages or by despatches brought to him. 
After each interruption he continued the conversation 
precisely where he had left it without any break of con- 
tinuity at all. An orderly memory. 

In the late afternoon called upon M. Krammarsch at 
his house which occupies a wonderful site in the most 
prominent position at Prague, where an old bastion of the 
City walls was, and indeed still is. He showed me round 
the place outside first and took me to the end of the 
garden where there is an unsurpassed view up and down 
the river in the valley below, seven bridges being visible. 
The house is well built in a reserved baroque style, chim- 
ing in well with the general architecture. Very nice inside 
too, and the whole well defended by iron grilles, gates, 
and so on. I could hardly get in or out. Quite the home of 
the successful and retired revolutionary! I found him 
still immersed in his Russian book and Russian ideas. I 
threw out the Benes scheme as a fly, very briefly and 
without mentioning its origin. K. was sceptical about 
it, and said that it would only be the old Austria over 
again, but this is not B.'s idea at all. I did not stop to 
argue about it. He gave me many interesting details 



LEAVE PRAGUE FOR VIENNA 131 

about the past. Mme. K. gave us tea. In the evening 
dined alone with Lady Clerk as H.E. is still not back from 
his shoot. A pleasant evening and a good talk. 

Monday, April 4, 1921. Said good-bye to my very kind 
host and hostess and the Legation staff and caught the 
4 P.M. train for Vienna. A gorgeous day and Prague looked 
its best in brilliant sunshine. I am glad to think that Sir 
George is where he is. It seems to me the crucial point in 
Central Europe so far as I have seen yet, and I think Sir 
G. one of our best diplomats. 



CHAPTER VI 
INFELIX AUSTRIA 

Vienna — Sir Thomas Cunninghame — The Vienna Emergency Relief Fund 

— Count Albert MensdorfiF on the future of Austria — The condition of 
Vienna — Untrue charges against MensdorfiF — MensdorfiF on King Karl — 
Baron Pitner on Austrian State finance — On King Karl — The Anschluss 

— Methods of saving Austria — Hatred of Bolshevism — Independence of 
the Provinces — The Hofburg and the Ballhaus Platz — State employes — • 
Dr. Schiiller — Poverty of officials — Austria's loss of population and ter- 
ritory — The new political system — Parties and leaders — The greatness 
of Vienna — Commercial prospects — Police President Schober — Dr. 
Friedrich Hertz — The allotment reform — Austria's deficit due to food 
subsidies — A memorandum on Austrian foreign policy — Economics gov- 
ern policy — A conversation with President Dr. Heinisch — Agricultural 
questions — A talk with Chancellor Dr. Mayr, Foreign Minister — The 
Anschluss question — No feeling for the Habsburgs in Austria now — Dr. 
Schiiller on food and debt — SchiJnbrunn — Another talk with Baron Pit- 
ner — The Central Government and the Provinces — Austrian Foreign 
Ministers — Berchtold — The Society of Friends — A circle of the old re- 
gime — Sir William Goode — His proposals and their rejection — Leave for 
Budapest. 

Vienna, Tuesday, April 5, 1921. Macartney came to see 
me in the morning. He has been down to Steinamanger, 
but could not see Karl. Lunched with Sir T. Cunning- 
hame, our Military Attache. He has Franz Ferdinand's 
old house with the old furniture and fixtures as they were, 
A delicious drawing of Franz Joseph in the white uniform 
at the age of eighteen or twenty, and many more treas- 
ures of real historic interest. Cunninghame thinks the 
Austrian Army not worth discussing. It has three thou- 
sand of the old oflBcers, but is run by soldiers' councils, 
and is only a toy. He says that it is useless for all prac- 
tical purposes, except to stand between the people and the 
police, and that Austria would have been just as well off 
without an army. C. does not think much of Hungary's 
troops either, and says that they have only forty guns. 
He admits the great progress made by Czecho-Slovakia 
lately. He asked if they would have moved if Karl had 
taken up the reins. I said yes, with twelve divisions in a 



VIENNA EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND 133 

week. Had I seen Skoda? I said no, but General Husak 
had asked me to go there to see the ten-year programme 
which the Germans had planned for it. From what C. 
tells me, it is a pity that I did not go. The French are 
trying to civilianise it to prevent it from competing with 
Creusot. Perhaps this is what Hiisak wanted me to realise. 
I do not blame the French after what we suffered from the 
Krupp dominance in Europe. C. says that Husak and Mit- 
telhauser are sure to quarrel soon. 

Went to see the Vienna Emergency Relief Fund people. 
They are still feeding 60,000 children under six in their 
homes. They have spent half a million. The Americans 
are feeding 300,000 over six in special buildings. We are 
closing down in May. It has been a creditable work and 
Cunninghame has been managing it. The Americans and 
the Quakers are still carrying on. Walked through the 
Hofburg. Impressive but deserted. The double Eagle 
remains on the Palace here. At Prague it is being removed. 
Walked round the main streets. I met Count Albert 
Mensdorff and asked him to lunch to-morrow. He was 
looking very much older, but seven years have no doubt 
altered us all, and such years! Macartney dined with me 
and we talked Europe. All accounts here accord that 
Vienna is looking up. The wages have so increased that the 
people can buy enough food. Sour brown bread to-day, no 
butter nor milk. Hot baths only three days a week. 
Vienna shops show all their old attractions and the people 
in this part of the town — the Innere Stadt — look bright 
and well off. C. says that it is the same thing in the 
suburbs. He says that he does not know one factory here 
that was not kept going throughout the war. A Vienna 
Jew called Baron Heitzes, who is now a Pole, paid twenty- 
three million kronen and two millions tax for a writing- 
table of Napoleon's at a sale here the other day. C. and I 
had a good talk of Greek and Czech politics to-day. I 
don't gather that I shall find much to interest me at 
Vienna, but Hungary, C. says, is an extraordinarily 
charming and attractive lunatic asylum. Wrote two arti- 



134 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

cles for the D. T. on the Czechs and had a nice letter from 
Burnham. 

Wednesday, April 6, 1921. Worked in the morning and 
took a stroll over the town. Count Mensdorff came to 
lunch and we had a long talk over the future of Austria, 
the origin of the war, the treatment and behaviour of the 
Bohemian nobility, Mensdorff's enemies, Kaiser Karl's 
frolic, and much else. I was very interested to discover 
that M.'s desire for Austria is an economic union with the 
small States round her, and not the Anschluss with 
Germany, which he strongly opposes. This is practically 
the policy of Benes. M. says that the old Austria came 
about, not from love marriages of the *'tu felix Austria 
nube" type, but from business alliances to join neigh- 
bouring provinces which could not get on without each 
other. So it was now. These States all wanted each other, 
and all the same had raised all their idiotic boundaries 
and customs walls against each other. If the opinion is 
general, the task of Benes in Austria should be easy. 

M. admitted that the condition of Vienna was improv- 
ing. Men were working. It was only the poorly paid 
officers, officials and professors, clerks, and paid em- 
ployes who were really badly off still. He was severe upon 
the Treaties, especially in the Tyrol, and said that the 
people ceded to Serbia and Roumania were badly treated 
and beaten. Everything, of course, had gone that he had 
cared for. He wishes that he had died before 1914. He 
would not talk much about the origin of the war, but 
declared that Tschirschky was a very bad influence at 
Vienna at the critical moment. He, M., was always sure 
that England would come in if Belgium were violated. 
This act he considered a vital error. He talked of X. X, 
he said, hated the Comtessen of Vienna who would not 
accept him in society. He hated the Catholics, the Hun- 
garians, the Court, the Army, and the Jews. There was 
nothing else much left in Austria for him to hate or like. 
M. thought that Israel had won the war. They had made 
it, thrived on it, and profited by it. It was their supreme 



MENSDORFF ON KING KARL 135 

revenge on Christianity. He thought that the good man- 
agement of their estates by the Bohemian nobles had saved 
Austria by providing food during the war. He did not 
think that confiscation would be carried very far, but said 
that as long as the sword of Damocles was suspended over 
them it was fatal for the estates. He is going to ask me to 
talk with some of the older Austrian statesmen still living. 
As for the accusations against him, he was away in Silesia 
with the hospitals when a Society of which he was Presi- 
dent published an attack on England's treatment of the 
Austrian prisoners and put his name to the statement 
without his knowledge. He had protested when he heard 
of it and had withdrawn from the Society. He had done 
his best to refute the charge by letters to friends and the 
press in England, but only the D. T. had the fairness to 
print his letter. Recently the charge had come up again 
when he had been sent to Geneva, and he had written 
again to the Neue Freie Presse. As for Kaiser Karl, M. 
said that no one in Vienna or in Hungary knew of his in- 
tention, nor could now account for the indiscretion. He 
had heard, as I had, of other Pretenders, but said that 
Monarchists must necessarily be Legitimists, or must give 
away the most sacred principle of Monarchy. The German 
Kaiser was in a different position as he had renounced the 
throne. Mensdorff told me that he had frequently met 
Conrad von Hotzendorff during the war, and that the lat- 
ter had told him that I was the only man in the enemy's 
press who understood the real situation. Dined with Sir 
T. Cunninghame and his cousin and had a pleasant talk 
about Austria and other affairs. I am thinking that there 
is little of interest here. But after all I have hardly begun 
to look yet. 

Friday, April 8, 1921. Had a heavy day's work yester- 
day indoors, writing letters and finishing articles. To- 
day began to see some authorities and first Baron Pitner, 
of the Wiener Bank Verein, to whom Mensdorff took me. 
A clear head and a broad mind. We talked of Austria's 
State finance, the means for putting it to rights, the feel- 



136 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

ings of Austria and Hungary, the animosity of Austria 
against the Czechs, etc., the antipathy of the country to 
Communism, the sentiments respecting the Habsburgs, 
the Anschluss and the causes that might bring it about — 
until at last we ran into the luncheon hour just as we were 
getting on to the special problem of Vienna, so I asked him 
to dine to-morrow to talk more. 

Pitner is well-informed and in close touch with the 
Government, as befits a wise banker. He is a Monarchist. 
But he says that Karl is an unbalanced person who never 
does the right thing. As Kaiser he was as often changing 
his opinions as he was his counsellors. He was personally 
pleasant. The Army came home raging against him and 
against the Kaiserin, who was absurdly reported to have 
sold plans to the enemy! There was no feeling for him in 
Austria, and in Hungary only among the Christian Social- 
ists and the Centre Party. If there had been any strong 
feeling the people would have risen the other day when 
they found him at Budapest. P. admitted the justice of 
Mensdorff's plea about legitimacy in Monarchism, but 
said that it did not prevent a large number of the Jockey 
Club members being in favour of the Archduke Joseph 
who had been very Hungarian in his sympathies. Many 
people longed for a King back, but not for Karl. When the 
question arose, it would go to the League of Nations as a 
formal application from the people. It would not come 
from a coup d'Stat. 

In the same way, though P. is against the Anschluss or 
union with Germany, he thinks it may come if all else 
fails. In this case some outlying province like Tyrol or 
Salzburg might apply to the League to join Germany, and 
then the others would follow if they saw no other way. 
The Austrians wished to remain Austrians, but they could 
not stand having to reply in soft words to Serb or Czech 
impertinences: they could not stand being bullied by those 
whom they had accounted an inferior race, and if it be- 
came a question of being trampled on they would rather 
share the process with sixty million other Germans than 
suffer it alone. 



METHODS OF SAVING AUSTRIA 137 

The real point was that Austria was not viable. It was 
true that she was better off now that reparations had been 
ahnost rescinded, and that people were beginning to work, 
but the exchange was going to nothing and unless she was 
put on her legs financially there would be a crash. There 
were three ways to do it: (1) by a loan from the Allies 
which was scarcely practicable in view of the Allies' own 
needs; (2) by un operation by a group of foreign bankers 
who might take the tobacco monopoly as a security now 
that this was out of pawn; and (3) by facilities given to 
Austria to raise a loan abroad. What was uncertain was 
the amount and the period of time for which the loan was 
needed, but he thought that sixty million sterling would 
put Austria on her legs again. They could not go round 
with a drum and beat up foreign bankers, and no bankers 
had come to them. I said that I thought there was a big 
future for a foreign bank in Central Europe, and that 
people did not yet seem to understand that there were 
assets to be offered as securities and a very fruitful field to 
cover. As things were, said P., it was Hugo Stinnes who 
had bought from Italian proprietors the Styrian iron 
mines near Leoben which were the biggest industry in 
Austria. The Italians had bought them cheap when 
Austria wanted money badly, and the latter had thrown 
away a great asset. 

P. did not worry about the chance of Bolshevism in 
Austria. It might come to Vienna, but in this case the 
country districts would starve out Vienna. They hated 
Bolshevism, but did not want their Kaiser back. P. was 
in a conservative part of the country for Easter, and did 
not hear a word said for Karl when he made his Putsch. 
I threw out the Benes scheme tentatively to see what P. 
would say about it. He thought it impossible, but as we 
discussed the needs, the ways, and the means, his opposi- 
tion to it grew less. His argument that each little country 
hated the other so that it would not make a move did not 
convince me, and at last he admitted that the thing might 
come in fifty years. 



138 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

He said that it was not realised in Europe that all the 
States of Austria had their Provincial Assemblies under 
the Empire and were therefore prepared for provincial 
rule. This had really come now, and the Provinces looked 
to their chief towns, and not to Vienna. Hungary had 
really always been independent while pretending not to 
be. She had behaved abominably to Austria during the 
war, having closed her frontiers and starved her. P. ad- 
mitted that the old Empire was viable because it con- 
tained almost everything that its people wanted. Then 
open your frontiers in Central Europe and you will get 
back the old conditions, I said. 

In the afternoon went to call on Dr. Schiiller at the 
Austrian F.O. in the Ballhaus Platz. Walked through the 
Hofburg which seemed full of ghosts. Such magnificence 
and now no magnificos. Had what Colonel House would 
call a good gloom over the Ball Platz. The same old 
building with the grilles on the lower windows and the 
sedate air of the perfect lady! What schemes, what in- 
trigues, what follies were born within those walls. Shade 
of Metternich, what has it all come to but the ruin of an 
Empire! Vanity of vanities ! 

Schiiller was very friendly and helpful. We met at 
Franckenstein's table one day in London and he was pre- 
pared for my arrival. He will arrange for me to see the 
President and Dr. Mayr and the other people who can tell 
me what I want to know. He himself will also prepare 
some short papers on certain subjects not easily handled 
in conversation. I was interested to hear that the Presi- 
dent's pay only amounted to eighty pounds a year in 
English money. S. said that Austria had 230,000 officials 
on her hands, but the figure was really deceptive, for about 
half of them ran the State monopolies and were really 
workmen and managers of business concerns. Out of the 
125,000 remaining, only 35,000 would be classed by us as 
civil servants. Their wages were very low. He himself 
could not afford a new suit of clothes. Fortunately most 
of the present rulers were men in very modest circum- 



TALK WITH DR. SCHtJLLER 139 

stances before, so they felt it less, but out of twenty men in 
his branch at the F.O. four had left in the last two months 
because they did not get a living wage and had found 
something better. 

We talked of Karl. S. says that Erdody was his ad- 
viser. He was both wrong-headed and malicious. Karl 
had been told by everyone who came to Switzerland that 
Hungary was longing for him, and the Kaiserin no doubt 
thought Easter Sunday a lucky day. He had had reported 
to him some civil remarks by French officers to somebody 
and Karl had magnified this into French acquiescence with 
his action. One could not really get over the fact that 
Karl was a very stupid fellow. It was a pity that Dr. 
Gratz, the Hungarian Foreign Minister, had resigned, as 
he was a good man. S. much in favour of a big foreign 
bank in Central Europe. But it must be so arranged that 
there is no head office at Vienna and succursales in other 
little States or they would all rebel. They must all be on 
an equal footing. I said that I was struck by the great 
opening for business and the assets available. S. said that 
few people in Europe realised this. There was a vast 
volume of business of all sorts. Is it ignorance, or the 
supposed political instability of this part of the world, 
that chokes people off.? I find Prague and Vienna more 
stable than revolutionary England just now. The accounts 
of the strike which began at home on the suitable date of 
April 1 are really heart-breaking, and I do not know how 
far it may not extend. It is the usual story of a revolution- 
ary minority trying to secure by direct action that over- 
turning of authority that cannot be obtained by a popular 
mandate. The very worst form of tyranny. 

What a pleasant town Vienna is! With a saving clause 
for Dresden, it is the only really civilised city that I have 
seen since I left Paris. Fine buildings, broad streets, shops 
full of every kind of goods, nice civil people, pretty ladies 
and pretty frocks, a real upper middle class, and not at 
all a few of the old regime lot with all the old Austrian 
attractiveness and charm. Can any country afford to dis- 



140 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

pense with its governing class, and the traditions, taste, 
and tact of centuries of accumulated experience? I doubt 
it. There are too many things in life which books and 
board-schools can never teach. 

Saturday, April 9, 1921. To most of us Austria is still 
Austria. How few of us realise that an Empire of 240,000 
square miles has been reduced to 32,000 and a population 
of fifty-three million to six million ! It had a seaboard and 
it is now land-locked, an army where now it has a Socialist 
guard. It had a currency of twenty-four crowns to the 
pound sterling and it is now twenty-five hundred to the 
pound. But this little rag remnant has still much of the 
culture and most of the pride of the old Empire. 

The last election gave some eighty-four members of the 
Christian-Socialist Party divided into three groups of the 
Vienna intelligentsia, the peasants, and the intelligentsia 
of the provincial towns: the Social Democrats returned 
sixty-eight members, the Pan-German, twenty-six. The 
figure of the latter disproves the claim that the Anschluss 
was desired by the mass of the people at the time of the 
election. Dr. Heinisch is President, a colourless man they 
say and not a success. The Government is a more or less 
informal combination of the Christian Socialists and the 
Pan-Germans. Dr. Mayr, the P.M., is a peasant and school- 
master from InnsbrUck. A Jewish name, but not a Jew. 
In these Tyrol districts the chief man on a farm was called 
Major from the Roman Majordomos. There are no Jews 
in the Centre or Christian-Socialist Party, though I fancy 
Dr. Griinberger, the Food Minister, must have a touch of 
Jew. The chief men of the Christian-Socialist Party are, 
except Mayr, not in the Government. Dr. Seidel, who is a 
priest, is practically chief of the party. Mataja is another 
influential member of it. Seidel and the Speaker practi- 
cally issue orders to the Government. The Pan-Germans 
prefer the Christian Socialists to the Social Democrats, 
but no party has a clear majority. Being totally unable to 
rest their authority on ultimate appeal to force, the Gov- 
ernment have a limited scope. There are two Houses. 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 141 

No more than at Prague does Single-Chamber government 
smile upon practical republicans. 

The idea has been given to me that the almost self- 
contained old Empire deliberately contrived to make each 
Province produce something different with a view to 
trouble when a break-up came. This is too far-fetched. 
Each Province produced its natural resources, and because 
they were part of a single Empire all could interchange 
them freely. Now one shuts out what another wants to 
give, and is itself shut out from giving what it has to give. 
Surely it only needs time for the policy of Benes to appeal 
to all. 

I don't think that people in Austria are thinking in 
political terms. The res angusta domi makes everyone 
think of him or herself in economic terms. I am told that 
Austrians frequently say, well, anyhow we are by ourselves 
now, and need no more worry ourselves about what the 
Czechs, or Croats, or Magyars want. I am also told that 
the Entente Ministers here have been constantly feeding 
the Austrians with hope of material support which never 
materialises, and that Governments here have made their 
book on it. 

Went to see M. Alexandropoulos, the Greek Minister, at 
14 Allergasse, to see if he had any news of the Greek cam- 
paign. He has no more than has been in the press except 
reports of Turkish massacres and outrages which he read 
to me. I fancy that the Greeks have had a set-back. One 
can't wonder if they have. After the Conference where 
they were let down by England, and sold by the French 
and Italians, they should have retired on Smyrna, and 
waited. That was the correct poHcy and strategy. Now 
the King goes out next Wednesday.^ Metaxas ^ is with him 
and three more classes have been called out. I have an idea 
that Harington will be feeling pretty uncomfortable now. 
All this thing hung together, and when the French made 
terms with Kemal the situation wholly changed, and the 

* He did not go till June. 

• General Metaxas refused to rejoin the King. 



142 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

Greeks should have recognised it. A. says that no bulletins 
about Princess C. have been published for four days and 
we hope it means that she is better. 

Sunday, April 10, 1921. The Supreme Council hav- 
ing transferred their responsibility for reorganising the 
finances of Austria to the League of Nations, the Financial 
Committee of the League will soon arrive here. Much pri- 
vate discussion of a possible basis. Will all the creditor 
Allied States forgo their claims on Austria's assets for a 
term of years, as Austen Chamberlain wisely proposed on 
March 17? This is not yet certain, except for the Great 
Powers, but it seems a vital preliminary move. There will 
then be some securities for loans, and the Greek pattern of 
International Financial Control seems to me a good model 
to copy. 

A lovely warm, spring day, the first without the bitter 
wind for weeks past. Walked round the town. Whatever 
faults the Habsburgs may have had, they certainly made old 
Vienna into a very dignified capital of a great Empire from 
an architectural point of view. The spaciousness of it all, 
the broad boulevards, the uniformity of the architecture, 
in spite of the presence of many different styles, the mag- 
nificence of the public buildings, the worthy statues, the 
churches, opera, and theatres, the many great palaces of 
the old nobles, and the pervading sense of elegance and 
finish make a most impressive whole which no other capital 
on the Continent but Paris can rival. It is truly an Im- 
perial City. The parks and boulevards were full of the 
middle class and common people to-day. The talk I heard 
chiefly of food, dress, and the krone. The Viennese are not 
"political animals" like the Greeks. I don't think that the 
majority bother their heads about it. Can this great city 
die, or be replaced by any other as the natural trysting 
place of Eastern Europe for pleasure or business.? I doubt 
it. The equipment, enchantment, and apparel of a great 
capital are not so easily duplicated. Neither the music nor 
the finesse of Vienna can be transplanted, nor its peculiar 
business aptitudes and adaptability, nor yet its less repu- 



GREATNESS OF VIENNA 143 

table enchantments. Hither must always drift Czechs, 
Magyars, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Roumans, Ruthenes, 
Slovaks, Bulgars, and Turks. So I think. It is the Paris 
of Eastern Europe, irrepressible and irreplaceable. Some 
strong young people may one day march and sack it out of 
spite, for Austria to-day is like a crab that has shed its 
shell, but more likely it will enfold the victor and assimilate 
him. The culture and civilisation of Europe are hence dis- 
seminated in partibus, and perhaps as a passive resister to 
barbarism Vienna may shine more than as conqueror in 
the Habsburg panoply. It may be that Maria Theresa 
with the statesmen and generals, Eugen and the Archduke 
Charles, the poets and the musicians, must still look down 
regretfully from their plinths upon a terribly changed 
world. Vienna stands. Her soul has fled with the comtes- 
sen. The sword and the sceptre are broken. Vienna, if it is 
to reign still, must reign by the mind. 

Monday, April 11, 1921. Am impressed by studying the 
Austrian papers. They seem detached and indifferent 
about foreign affairs, but are full of accounts of all sorts of 
new or extended industries springing up, and I counted 
twenty-three pages of commercial advertisements in Sun- 
day's Neue Freie Presse. I read or hear of every kind of old 
industry being extended and of some new one opened. 
New machinery is being employed, and on the farms prize 
stock are being bought and farm buildings improved by 
the rich peasants who throve on the war. From Upper and 
Lower Austria, Styria, and the Tyrol, it is all the same 
story of new developments, and what is really going on is 
an endeavour to make the new Austria less dependent on 
her neighbours and less forced to buy abroad in markets 
made fearfully dear by the exchange. I do not wonder that 
Benes contemplates a hasty change in his protectionist 
policy. He will lose his Austrian customers if he does not 
hurry up! 

Had long talk to-day with Police President Schober,* 
a very wise old Austrian, and with Hofrat Dr. Friedrich 

^ He afterwards became Chaacellor. 



144 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

Hertz in the Bunderskanzleramt. The latter is largely 
charged with economic duties. I found them both strangely 
in line with the Benes policy for Central Europe. Schober 
is a charming character and a regular Austrian of the old 
type, and Hertz a convinced Republican of a moderate 
type, but they were quite in accord on the general eco- 
nomic aim of Free Trade and open frontiers. The real 
difficulty is the obstruction of the Austrian Provinces 
separately. They have tried not to let anything in the way 
of food go to Vienna, and in fact are little stuck-up feuda- 
tories who almost levy taxes on their own account and 
generally make themselves an infernal nuisance. How, Dr. 
Benes, will you unite seven little States in an economic 
unity, if in each of these seven little States there are a 
packet of little statelets trying to run an economic policy 
of their own.? 

I find a general accord that Austria wants about sixty 
millions sterling to put her State finance on its legs again, 
but I have not yet found the bases of the calculation. I 
find that Vienna's improvement in food conditions is in 
some small part due to the fact that there are 80,000 allot- 
ment holders in the environs. This practically means that 
the eight-hour day is extended to twelve and so balances 
the loss. Quite a good remedy when it can be used. For 
the industrial State the allotment is the best agrarian re- 
form. A man will work while there is any light to cultivate 
his own patch. There are also 100,000 men who want to 
convert the Tiergarten into allotments and work on them. 
I am becoming convinced that there is nothing for it but 
free trade within the old Austrian boundaries. Selfishness 
and obstinacy may prolong the settlement, but it must 
come, and each State will have to wallop its own provincial 
nigger who won't play the game. There are so few great 
properties here that the Czech agrarian legislation is not 
copied, but the commandeering of houses is. It is carried 
to such lengths, and fixity of tenure is so secure, that, as 
rents may not be raised, the prospective house builder is 
frozen out, while house properties for want of adequate 



AUSTRIAN FOREIGN POLICY 145 

rents slowly deteriorate generally. People think that the 
Socialists have quite come down off their perches. They 
find their theories impracticable. They know it, and can't 
afford to admit it. They are very mild now. As for the 
Communists, they only polled one-half per cent at the late 
election, and have not one member in Parliament. I find 
that two-thirds of the Austrian deficit is due to food sub- 
sidies, chiefly bread. A loaf of 1260 grammes is now sold 
for nine kronen, but costs sixty kronen to the State. Even a 
Rothschild is paid therefore fifty-one kronen by the State 
for every loaf he eats. It would be better to stop the sub- 
sidies even if salaries and wages were raised proportion- 
ately. The price of nine kronen is merely that of baking 
and distributing the bread. 

Tuesday, April 12, 1921. Went to the E.G. in the morn- 
ing. Schiiller gave me a typed statement by the office on 
Austrian foreign policy. It had been seen, very slightly 
altered, and approved by Dr. Mayr, the Chancellor and 
Foreign Minister. It came to this, that Austria's foreign 
policy was mainly economic and that food and work for 
their people were the aim. It said that no people had been 
hit so hard as Austria by the Peace. Scarcity of coal is 
strongly commented upon and the absolute need of foreign 
credits, the critical situation arising from the need of them 
being pointed out. It says that an economic union of the 
Succession States cannot be thought of, but that Austria 
is ready for normal commercial intercourse, as before the 
war. Sent it off without comment to the D. T. 

I saw the President of the Federation, Dr. Heinisch, 
to-day at the Ball Platz. A tall, dignified man of some 
sixty-five years with a good presence. Also with a beard. 
We talked in Metternich's old working room. I told him 
why I had come and we had nearly an hour's talk on pol- 
itics and finance, food supplies, farming, and kindred sub- 
jects. He was very pleasant and shrewd, especially on 
agricultural subjects and finance on which he is an ac- 
knowledged authority. Writing at the close of a day when 
I have had talks with many people, I cannot recall that he 



146 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

told me anything particularly striking except that the 
Swiss cattle did best in Austria; that he produced good 
flour, but that his baker turned it into sour bread by a bad 
mixture of barley and maize; that he had no oven to do his 
own baking; that whereas Vienna used to get 600,000 litres 
of milk a day she now^ only gets 70,000. We have to re- 
member that half of the Austrian soil is given up to Alpine 
farming, and only twenty-three per cent bears wheat, 
while the remainder is forest or unproductive. He did not 
throw much fresh light on the questions of Central Euro- 
pean politics or of finance, but hoped that the League 
might act quickly about finance. He struck me as a good, 
steady, and rather slow man of calm mind and moderate 
views who would neither commit follies nor set the Danube 
on fire. 

Afterwards 1 saw the Chancellor, as he is called, alias 
the Prime and Foreign Minister, Dr. Mayr, who was suf- 
fering from neuralgia. A good, clear-headed man who took 
care that I should realise the position of the Government 
in the Anschluss question. There is to be a plebiscite in the 
Tyrol on the 28th on the question of uniting with Germany 
and perhaps in Styria and some other provinces in May, 
The Government do not want the plebiscite, but the Pan- 
Germans do, and as the Government owes its life to the 
support of the Pan-Germans, it cannot stop an Anschluss 
plebiscite, as this is the main plank of the Pan-German 
Party. A German majority of anything from sixty to 
ninety per cent is expected. But Mayr said that it would 
only be platonic and would mean nothing. The attitude of 
the Government was regulated by the Treaty of St. Ger- 
main, and Mayr said that he had quite agreed with Curzon 
when the latter had told him in London that the question 
of Austria joining Germany was not one for Austria to 
decide. I discussed the Benes plan with Mayr and found 
him entirely in favour of free trade between the Succession 
States, but he, like all others, flouted the idea of any po- 
litical union, and all similarly agree that there is no pro- 
Habsburg sympathy in Austria just now. Even in Hungary 



TALK WITH CHANCELLOR DR. MAYR 147 

yesterday a vote was passed approving of the Hungarian 
Government's action in their treatment of Karl, without 
one dissentient voice, which is almost amazing in such a 
fanatically monarchical country. Mayr had given such a 
clear account of Austrian taxation when he was in London 
that it was not necessary for me to reopen this question. 
We talked for an hour round all the Austrian questions, 
and then I had a look at Metternich's portrait, apparently 
by Lawrence, who painted him several times. A fine figure 
and a good pendant to his colleague Castlereagh, I should 
imagine. Also went to look at the room where the Congress 
of Vienna sat. It is in the F.O., and has been left quite 
unchanged with the old chairs covered in yellow silk. The 
room and trappings white and gold. Some large lustres 
and mirrors. The long table would take about thirty-six 
people. Not a very big room, but a pleasant one. All the 
old Habsburg furniture and pictures remain in the F.O. 
It is like the home of a county magnate who has nothing 
left but meuhles. 

Dr. Schiiller very Helpful again to-day. I went with him 
into the main figures of debt and food. With a revenue of 
twenty-eight milliards Austrian crowns there is an expen- 
diture of sixty-eight milliards, or a deficit of forty milliards. 
There is an uncovered note issue of forty milliards. The 
large deficit in proportion to revenue is due to the depre- 
ciation of the exchange. The total amount of cereals 
required annually to feed the people is about 900,000 tons. 
Of this amount the farmers contribute 100,000 tons nom- 
inally, or one-quarter their crop at a price of twenty kronen 
for a hundred kilograms, which is half its value. The 
peasants use perhaps 300,000 to feed themselves and their 
men, and have about 100,000 tons to sell freely. The bal- 
ance of 500,000 tons comes from the United States, the 
Argentine, and Jugo-Slavia. The population of Vienna by 
the census of 1920 was 1,841,326, of whom 851,302 were 
men. Of these 975,904 were engaged in industry, trade, 
traflfic, agriculture, liberal professions, and public and 
domestic service. 



148 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

Motored out to Schonbrunn. I suppose the only Palace 
extant with 1441 rooms and 139 kitchens. Quite hideous, 
huge, gaunt, and bare, painted a horrible yellow colour and 
with no view. A formal French palace garden, with radi- 
ating broad walks, clipped tree hedges, sculptures, foun- 
tains, etc. Very little turf. The walks now all a dreary 
grey gravel. The only decent thing in the garden is the 
Neptune fountain. A most depressing country house, 
quite apart from the bill from 139 kitchens. Who would be 
a Kaiser and live in such sterile, uncomfortable, and pre- 
tentious grandeur? Not surprised that the poor little 
Due de Reichstadt died there. The only wonder is that he 
lived there. 

Looked in at some churches. St. Stephen's a great Gothic 
masterpiece, and the Votive Church a most attractive mod- 
ern Gothic jewel, but too dark inside. Went to have a dish 
of tea with Baron Pitner and there met Herr Metaya, one 
of the leading agents of the Christian-Socialist Party. A 
long talk over Austrian affairs. The Baroness came in 
later. A pretty and pleasant woman. P. says that the old 
regime still talk as if one could order a regiment out of 
barracks, and maintain order, but the 25,000 or so of the 
Volkswehr were strongly infected with Socialism and had 
no offensive value, as most of the officers and N.C.O.'s 
would go one way and most of the men the other. They 
had put in a man to try and reform this body, but he had 
not succeeded. The Government could not really count 
on force as every Government should be able to do. The 
best force they had was the six thousand Vienna police, 
but it was not strong enough to suppress large movements. 
In the Provinces the gendarmes were pretty good. In the 
Provinces the old double government of the Central Gov- 
ernment and of the Province still de facto continued, 
though the Landeshauptmann and the Statthalter had 
been united in one person. Metaya made a point of the 
immense numbers of persons who had been thrown out of 
their work by the recent upheaval. All agree that Vienna 
must remain the chief business centre of Eastern Europe. 



AUSTRIA AND THE PROVINCES 149 

It has all the plant and the knowledge, besides still great 
resources, and I think that the banks are doing a great 
business. The mere game of money -changing for the needs 
of foreigners here is a profitable business, aided, of course, 
by the separate currency of each State. 

Austria became an economic entity in 1775 long before 
the Zollverein in Germany. It was within the Empire that 
Austria built up her industry, and this business prevented 
her distance from the sea proving a serious hindrance. It 
is the obstacles to such internal trade that are really imped- 
ing Austria now, combined, of course, with the dispersal of 
her old resources among the Succession States, She is cut 
off from the sea, has only one-half per cent of her old coal 
assets, and is hedged in by tariff barriers. The debase- 
ment of the currency make it almost impracticable to buy 
in England except at prohibitive prices. There has resulted 
some political as well as economic prostration and the Pro- 
vinces of new Austria herseff , always enjoying a large share 
of local Government, have become even more independent 
of Vienna, a movement fortified by the natural antagonism 
of the country and the towns which has been one of 
the prominent features of modern political developments. 
The international popularity of Vienna, far from helping 
her at first in her material difficulties, rather had the con- 
trary effect, since it exasperated the Succession States who 
were so jealous of Vienna. Vienna is perhaps safe because 
the Succession States could not bear to see one of their 
number aggrandise herself by taking this great centre of 
attraction. 

I was told to-day, either by the President or by the 
Chancellor, that England, France, Italy, and almost cer- 
tainly America would waive their rights to reparation and 
that Czecho-Slovakia and Roumania would probably con- 
cur. This will remove one great obstacle in the way of 
foreign investment here, for there will be assets as security 
for loans. 

I thought it strange to-day while examining the por- 
traits at the Ball Platz to observe that nearly all the Aus- 



150 INFELIX AUSTRIA 

trian Foreign Ministers since Metternich, except Haymerle 
and Aehrenthal, had been Hungarians, Poles, Slavs, and 
anybody but Germans. Berchtold and Forgach were both 
Hungarian, though the former has property in Moravia. 
From the accounts I get of him here, he must have been a 
frivolous boulevardier without any sense of responsibility. 
He never seemed, after he fell, to have displayed the 
slightest realisation of the odious part that he played in 
July, 1914, and though he had intelligence he had no char- 
acter and was a mere tool for more active intriguers. He 
is said now to live the same life of frivolity in Switzer- 
land. It must also be said that the Habsburgs kept foreign 
politics and the Army out of the hands of parliaments and 
the public altogether, and that the Austrian people had 
little share in the responsibility for the war. Tisza, as we 
know now, was strongly against war at first. 

Wednesday, April 13, 1921. I think that the Anglo- 
American Relief Mission of the Society of Friends have 
done a great work here. One of their wisest acts has been 
to buy, and to help Vienna to buy, Swiss and Dutch cows. 
The President told me that the staff are most capable and 
well-informed. When the Vienna mblkerei increases its 
single boiler and its one hundred and sixty-eight employes 
to the pre-war eight hundred employes and eight boilers 
stoked day and night, and gets back its other admirable 
arrangements, one of the most baleful hardships of the 
present time will be removed. I wonder how the Repara- 
tion Commission dare ask Austria to deliver all those eight 
thousand cows to the Succession States and Italy! 

I fear it must be said that owing to want of many arti- 
cles of food and high prices of other articles, the people of 
Vienna are still badly off. The pawnshops do a thriving 
trade. Perhaps exploitation of the gold in the High Tauern 
of the Austrian Eastern Alps, which might yield three 
thousand kilos of pure gold a year, will be one of the attrac- 
tive investments of the future. 

In the afternoon Mensdorff called for me and took me to 
the official residence of the former P.M. Baron Beck whose 



A CIRCLE OF THE OLD REGIME 151 

wife gave us tea. There was a little circle of the ancien 
rSgime including Baron Plener, frequently Minister, Count 
Colloredo, the President of Police Schober, an Austrian 
Ambassador formerly at Washington, Spitzmiiller, the 
Governor of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, etc. We had 
a good talk of affairs and they were all very interesting. 
On the whole it is thought that the ruin of Austria is in full 
swing, since there is no authority except Schober's, no one 
to say no to anybody, and blocks of people had only to 
demand more pay or wages and there was no one to resist 
them. So the thaw of orderly administration had set in. 
Baron Beck said that in the old days, when one rang up the 
Statthalter of a Province from the Chancellor's office, an 
order was given and was executed. Now they might ring 
up from Herrengasse 7, but the Provinces did as they liked. 
Even the new Vienna Province at No. 10 in the same 
street. They thought that the workmen were now swim- 
ming in money, but the upper classes had mostly left Vi- 
enna, as they could not afford to live there, while the 
middle classes were badly off too. 

Mensdorff says that there are never more than two or 
three people whom he knows at the opera or theatre, and 
the old names on the boxes and at the race meetings have 
disappeared. Vienna is given up to profiteers and foreign- 
ers. The old glory has departed. There is neither fashion, 
taste, nor elegance. It is the end of a period. A famous 
demi-mondaine here had apologised to one of the old lot 
for taking up with the new side, but said that she could not 
afford the luxury of her old friends, as she could not reduce 
her standard of living! Much sarcasm about the Treaty 
of St. Germain, and it was supposed that the people there 
had been deceived by the names of the Austro-Hungarian 
Bank and had supposed that it was a Government estab- 
lishment, whereas it was only a private bank with certain 
privileges just like the Bank of England, and utterly un- 
bearable burdens had been thrown upon it. It was in liqui- 
dation. Sir W. Goode's proposal had been turned down. 
If the League of Nations proposed an internal loan it would 



15^ " INFELIX AUSTRIA 

not succeed . Everybody very despondent about th e future, 
but I expected nothing else among the old Imperial set. 

So there it is. Europe's failure. 

Thursday, April 14, 1921. Had intended to go to Buda- 
pest by the Danube to-day, but stayed to see Sir W. Goode, 
who is at the Bristol, suffering like others from 'flu and 
throat brought on us all by the extraordinary season, dust, 
and chilly winds. He impressed me favourably in spite of 
the criticisms I had heard of him in London. He told me 
that L. G., his own P.M., had turned him down in Paris. 
Curzon had made a good speech leading up to Goode's con- 
clusions and suggestions, when L. G. had butted in and had 
made the famous gaffe about not caring whether Austria 
went to Germany or not. The French papers had got hold 
of it at once, and as usual had spread it abroad to diminish 
our prestige in Europe. Goode thought that when L. G. 
was immersed in home affairs, he had no patience with 
foreign problems and would not listen to anything. I have 
no doubt myself that the general conclusions of the Repara- 
tions Commission dealing with Austria were the correct 
ones. Sforza asked whether L. G. wanted Germany on the 
Italian frontier, and Crowe said that the only thing left for 
Austria was a first-class funeral. 

Goode showed me the last figures of Austrian expendi- 
ture on the bread subsidies. They are monthly 2,762,000- 
000 kronen for food generally including 2,300,000,000 
kronen for cereals. This is really what is sinking Aus- 
tria. It is still true that Austria cannot exist without 
external assistance, but that if she were tided over the 
next five years and internal reconstruction effected she 
might become self-supporting. A foreign loan of sixty 
millions sterling, the control of Austrian public finance, 
the foundation of a privileged bank of issue, and the fund- 
ing of the services of the Austrian foreign debt are among 
Goode's proposals on the financial side, but it has all been 
turned down, and the League financial people seem to be 
coming here with a brand-new plan which Goode fancies 
no practical banker will look at. He says that Barclays' 



LEAVE FOR BUDAPEST 153 

believe in the financial rehabilitation of Austria, but with 
L. G. omnipotent nothing can be done. Caught the 2 p.m. 
train to Pesth. Where we struck the Danube it was some 
two hundred to four hundred yards wide, not blue, but 
steely grey. Reached Budapest latish. Major Lyons met 
me kindly. My room in the Hungaria faces the river. A 
beautiful sight when the moon rose and all the lights 
twinkled on the heights beyond the river. Dined at the 
hotel and made the Maitre d'Hotel give me the local 
gossip and tell me who was here. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

Budapest — The British High Commission — Lord Bertie's correspondence 

— Major-General Gorton — A new Hungarian Government — Hungary's 
losses — A waiting policy — The Archduke Joseph — " The Royal Hun- 
garian Government" — Accusations against Roumania — Situation of the 
Danube Navigation Company — The Mannheim-Regensburg Canal — 
The Danube Commission — Agricultural statistics — Two good diplomatic 
stories — Count Bethlen announces his policy in Parliament — Count Jul- 
ius Andrassy — M. Czabo — Prince Windischgratz — M. de Barczy — The 
scene in Parliament — Hungary and the Roumanians — A conversation 
with Count Banffy, Foreign Minister — His definition of the Government 

— The crown of St. Stephen — A Protectorate — Cromwell and Horthy — 
Tales of the refugees — A conversation with Count Albert Apponyi — The 
outlook of people changed — Apponyi at the Peace Conference — Confi- 
dence in English justice — M. Hegediis, Finance Minister, expounds to me 
his great programme — Colonel Alfred Stead — A tour round Lake Balaton 

— The country and the crops — Vienna — A party at Sir William Goode's 
hotel — Foreigners and night life at Vienna — Police President Schober's 
opinion — Mr. Walker D. Hines — Return to Paris. 

Budapest, Friday, April 15, 1921. The Danube is a nobler 
river than the Moldau, but Budapest has a strong resem- 
blance to Prague, with its heights and palaces on one bank 
and the lower part of the town on the other. Went up to 
our Legation. Hohler has been and still is seriously ill with 
'flu and bronchitis. Saw Athelstan-Johnson, the First 
Secretary, and looked over the Legation — I beg its pardon, 
the Headquarters of the British High Commission ^ — 
which has a beautiful view over the river from the heights 
close to the old cathedral. Very comparable with Sir G. 
Clerk's view from his terrace over Prague, but the Legation 
here is much smaller. A charming place of an old-world 
type with arched and vaulted roofs and an inner court. 
Left a card and note on Count Albert Apponyi who is away. 
Lunched with A. -J. in his house and we discussed European 
politics. He thinks that the old nobles party here is losing 
ground, and that the various countries round hate each 
other too much to combine. He would approve of the final 

' The Treaty of Trianon had not yet been ratified. 



LORD BERTIE'S CORRESPONDENCE 155 

break-up of Austria, part going to Czechs and Serbs and 
part to Germany and Hungary. I said that I did not see 
the continued existence of Czecho-Slovakia on these terms 
and tliat Italy would not like Germany on her borders. 

He told me that Lord Bertie's correspondence was 
lodged at Welbeck in two strong boxes and that it would 
not be published for fifty years. I asked if it included the 
private letters written to the F.O. and were they not very 
Rabelaisian.'^ Yes, he said they were. Bertie had copies of 
them all, for he was a bureaucrat and had kept everything. 
I grumbled because we should never see these gems. A. -J. 
said that they were a most faithful and accurate represen- 
tation of Bertie's time in Paris during the war. 

Went on to see Brigadier-General Gorton, my old friend 
of past Intelligence days, now at the head of our Military 
Mission here. The French press seems to be quite off the 
rails in belittling the Little Entente and in boosting a Karl 
Kingdom here and in Austria. I am amazed that they seem 
quite off the Czechs. The Frenchmen ought to travel a bit 
and they would see how the land lay. I saw Mr. Barber of 
our Commercial Branch, Mr. Humphreys being away, and 
am to come in and gain a little trade wisdom from him to- 
morrow. Went to the opera with the Gortons at 6 p.m. A 
good house and a competent orchestra. "The Evening 
Star," by Meyerbeer. I have never heard it before. Very 
well done. Went on afterwards to dine at about 9.15 with 
the Gortons and General Bellini, the Italian Military Com- 
missioner, and his wife. I asked the Italian General 
whether Italy's natural frontier on the Alps appeared to 
him worth the passing over of the Tyrol to Germany, as 
seemed to me likely to happen eventually. He thought it 
was worth even having Germany on the border for Italy 
to gain the natural frontier. Doubt whether Sforza will 
agree with this opinion. Am afraid that our own people at 
home are too much immersed in their Martha-like worries 
to understand where all this affair is leading. The abandon- 
ment of Austria is the beginning of a great future disturb- 
ance which will entail the ruin of the Benes scheme and of 



156 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

Czecho-Slovakia, and the eventual spread of German do- 
minion over not only Austria, but Hungary, which is too 
hard beset by Roumanians and Jugo-SIavs not to seek 
refuge in a German, or in fact in any combination which is 
against the Roumanians. 

Saturday y April 16, 1921. A Hungarian Cabinet crisis 
which followed the Karl Putsch has resulted in the retire- 
ment of Dr. Gratz from the F.O. here and his replacement 
by Count Banffy. Count Stefan Bethlen, aged about forty- 
eight, becomes Ministerprasident, or P.M. I am told that 
one effect of recent losses of territory by Hungary has been 
to leave about fifty per cent of the present population 
Protestant with some affinity to the Wee Frees. This ac- 
counts for the visit of the American and English Unitarians 
to Transylvania last autumn. The Magyars had shrieked 
about their treatment by the Roumanians. The parsons 
after a three months' tour gave the Roumanians a rare 
dressing-down, and said that it was like placing Mexicans 
over two million Americans. Had an innings with Mr. 
Barber about trade and commerce. He gave me some 
interesting and relevant facts. I never realised before that 
Hungary was now only one-third her former size and popu- 
lation; had lost all her mines, iron ore, forests, half of her 
coal, headwaters, etc., and was reduced to the status of a 
large farm. Albert Apponyi recommends a waiting policy, 
sure that the peace is untenable, but also that no basis 
exists yet for modification. In fact — pensons-y tou jours! 
Quite sound. Colonel Alfred Stead is specialising here in 
films, oil, river transport, banks, and other speculations. I 
have a suspicion that the clauses about Danube navigation 
are the most sensible things in the Peace Treaties. They 
are the only things not demonstratively cursed by every- 
body. I must look into them. I am told that the Hunga- 
rians secretly do a night's drill a week. They can place 
70,000 men in the field, but of course one cannot neglect 
their old war-trained veterans whom Gorton puts at 
800,000 men. Pesth very full of officers in uniform. Not 
quite the old aristocratic-looking lot. Expect they are all 



THE ARCHDUKE JOSEPH 157 

pretty hard hit. Ministers here get the equivalent of 
thirty-six pounds a year. 

Motored with Gorton up to the golf course on the Downs 
behind Buda. Fine air and views and a perfect mass of 
wild flowers of all sorts. The Gortons dined with me. He 
told me that the Archduke Joseph stayed on here all 
through the Bela Kun Bolshevist regime and called him- 
self Joseph Anschut from the name of his country house. 
Joseph a regular Magyar and speaks the lingo. He is forty- 
eight. He means to call himself Lorraine instead of Habs- 
burg as he is entitled to do by his descent from Maria 
Theresa. It would evade the proscription of the Habsburg, 
but Gorton tells him that the Allies might see through the 
plan. He is a tiptop shot and a fine sportsman. The Hun- 
garian Habsburgs seem to have been little in touch with 
F. J.'s crowd. When F. J. came here he stayed with the 
Andrassys, etc. When Karl came here to be crowned he 
scarcely left his railway train. G. says that the reverence 
of the people is not for an individual, but for the sacred 
crown of St. Stephen. Last night at the opera the Arch- 
duchess occupied the Royal Box, Met the American Mili- 
tary Attache Enslen and his wife. Nice people. One 
thing I must say for F. J. He was the greatest builder of 
towns in modern history. History will admit it if we do not. 

Sunday, April 17, 1921. Wrote on Austria; then lunched 
with Mr. Davidson, of the Chronicle, and Mr. Dicker, of 
the Chicago Daily News. They have been about in this 
part of the world all the winter and were interesting. We 
are all agreed that the opening-up of all frontiers of the old 
Dual Monarchy is the only economic salvation for Austria 
and the Succession States. We walked down to St. Mar- 
garet's Island and had tea there. Athelstan-Johnson 
dined with me in the evening and we had a good chat and 
wrangle over Central European affairs. A capable man 
with strong and decided views. 

Ex-Kaiser Karl is still King of Hungary and has never 
abdicated in this capacity. The Government is still the 
"Royal Hungarian Government" and uses the Royal 



158 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

Crown on its oflBcial paper which I have examined in order 
to make sure. The Governor Admiral Horthy is a kind of 
Protector. In fact he is Regent. All who swore allegiance 
to Karl and the sacred crown of St. Stephen still adhere to 
him. If they did not — and some were away — they con- 
sider themselves free agents. The mass of the people are 
Monarchists, but do not want the King back just yet. 
Quite a number would like to elect a King. Joseph is much 
liked, but they say that there are other reasons why not 
many like to plunge in that direction. Albrecht is talked of 
as a substitute. He is very rich, whereas poor Karl is said 
to be very broke. Still I would back Karl from belief in 
the " moriamur pro rege nostro" 1741 sentiment of a loyal 
peasant people, and because one cannot get over the fact 
that he has been crowned. Why are my friends in Vienna, 
Mensdorff apart, backing Joseph.? Why does not Austria 
like or wish for Karl.f^ Is it from jealousy of Hungary? 
Perhaps it is all of scant practical import because all feel 
that the matter is not urgent. There is a King to be had if 
the people want one, but Karl is not a great figure, and he 
has done little to make Austria stand up for him, while in 
Hungary many think that there is a period like our Com- 
monwealth to be got over before a Restoration. There is 
so much else to be done first ! All the same the Hunga- 
rians seem to be so deeply incensed against Roumania, 
which now bullies two million Magyars in Transylvania, 
that they will join any combination against her which 
promises success, and they might want a King then. 

I don't much care for all the reports here against Rou- 
mania. She is said to be rotten, everybody bribed, no 
governing personnel fit to run her new territory, railways 
hopeless for military and commercial uses, etc., and alto- 
gether a very sorry story of graft, incompetence, and pecu- 
lation. Not good when Germany must have such a grudge 
against her and the Hungarians are always ready for any 
mischief on her borders. 

It is also very enlightening to study here the new map 
of Hungary and to size up her losses under the Trianon 



DANUBE NAVIGATION COMPANY 159 

Treaty. Especially to note that all the headwaters of her 
rivers are cut off from her to the north and east and the 
foresters in the north unable now to float down their logs 
to Budapest. One peasant of Tlemcen was asked how he 
got on under the Czechs. He said that when the Vag ran 
to Prague upstream instead of to Budapest, it might be all 
right. Population, mines, forests, salt, iron, the grain of the 
Banat, and much more all taken away. A peace of justice? 
How can the Magyars think it.? 

Monday, April 18, 1921. The Corriere correspondent here 
came to talk. Lunched with Captain Thomas Domaille in 
charge here of the Danube Navigation Company, run by 
Furness's house in London, chiefly by Sir F. Lewis, and 
by Cox's Bank through Eric Hambro. The Fleet consists 
of the D.D.O.G. (Austrian) and M.F.T.R. (Hungarian) 
fleets on the river, of which fifty per cent were annexed by 
Roumania and Serbia, who say that Paris can decide what 
they like about the ships, but they are not going to give 
them back. The fifty per cent remaining, now the Com- 
pany's, include fifty-six steamers, sixty-eight tugs, seven 
hundred barges, and eleven motor barges with a total per- 
sonnel of some six thousand people. D. is keen about tak- 
ing over and improving the Mannheim-Regensburg Canal. 
This is little used now, and only three feet deep, but a mil- 
lion would make it fit to take the D.N. Company's barges, 
and they could then ascend the Rhine and pass by the 
Canal to the Danube and deliver a ton of steel at Buda- 
pest at twenty-seven shillings a ton. The other way costs 
forty-five shillings a ton up from Galatz alone. It is ener- 
getic of England to have got hold of the Company, but I 
doubt that it more than barely pays its way yet. The 
Regensburg scheme offers great possibilities. A great 
fault in the International control of the Danube is that one 
set of men look after the actual navigation, and another 
after dams and agriculture. It is a fault because every- 
thing done to the banks, etc., affects navigation, rate of 
current, fall of water, and so on. The Danube is a five-knot 
stream; the Rhine, they affirm, only one to one and one- 



160 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

half knots.* So it is much easier to ascend or tug up the 
Rhine than the Danube. I doubt whether the Danube 
Commission in Paris is much good. The riparian States 
play tricks as they please. 

Spent the afternoon in studying agricultural facts and 
statistics. Much hampered by want of figures since the 
Peace; all statistics are for the old Hungary. The Alfold, 
the great Hungarian basin or lowlands, has lost all its 
timber by the recent partition; i.e., about six and a half 
million hectares out of seven and a half; much of its live- 
stock and its fodder, twenty -four per cent of its horned 
cattle, thirty per cent of its sheep, and forty per cent of its 
horses, half of its coal supplies, and 128,000,000 out of 
144,000,000 of tons of its iron ore. All its salt supplies are 
gone, all its gold, silver, lead, copper, zinc, quicksilver, 
antimony, cobalt, nickel, and aluminium mines, and its 
natural gas. The splitting-up of a hydrographically united 
economic whole is especially fatal to Hungary. The prob- 
lem of water power will now be diflScult of solution, and 
irrigation most precarious. The sources of energy and the 
reservoirs should be, and now are not, in the same hands as 
the territory to be watered. The new arrangement is like 
handing over the Assuan Dam to the dervishes. The Vag 
(Waag), Tisza, and Maros can only carry their timber to 
the timberless Lowlands, and are not allowed to do so now. 
The tobacco factories and sugar refineries in the mountains 
will also languish, as their raw materials come from the 
Lowlands. The appeal of the Hungarian Geographical 
Society to the world is, to my mind, one of the strongest 
arguments against the recent so-called settlement. But 
what settlement, here or elsewhere, was ever made but by 
force? 

The chief agricultural products of Hungary are wheat, 
rye, oats, and spring barley. Potatoes are widely grown, 
and clover and lucerne among the fodder plants. Wheat 
is the chief product of the Alfold. Maize is a big crop. So 

^ Quite mcorrect. The Rhine stijeam between Mainz and Coblenz is at least 
eight knots an hour. 



AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 161 

is sugar beet. That remarkable publication, the Magyar- 
orszag Oazdasagi Terkepekben, or Economics of Hungary 
(1920), shows in a series of maps in the most striking 
manner the loss to Hungary by the settlement in every 
class of crop and industry. It is painful reading. I wonder 
if the victors at Paris will allocate those forty million sap- 
lings to the afforestation of the barren tracts that the Hun- 
garians used to do. What will happen to the Forestry High 
School at Selmeczbanya? I wonder how the extensive ir- 
rigation system will get on when it has been broken into 
by the new boundaries. But the more one looks round one 
in this part of the world, the more one wonders and at last 
one ceases to wonder, for one's capacity for wonder becomes 
exhausted. Don't know whether the world has been made 
safe for democracy, but am sure that democracy has shown 
itself unsafe for the Austro-Hungarian world. 

I have seen figures which show that large estates under 
the intensive farming system, compared with the small 
estates, often produce double the crops. Deep steam 
ploughing in the autumn, frequent hoeing, good manuring, 
a proper rotation of crops, adequate capital (sometimes), 
and efficient management are the main causes. Many of 
these large estates will soon [pass into the hands of the 
small farmers under the Agricultural Reform Act, so it is 
unsafe to speculate on the results. 

Nemesis is evidently reaching the selfish Succession 
States too. I hear on all sides that they are losing by their 
protectionist tariffs. 

Two good stories at dinner to-night. One, the receipt of 
a letter by the Hungarian Government from the League 
of Nations requesting them to establish a sanitary cordon 
on the PoHsh frontier to prevent the spread of typhus. The 
fact that there is no such frontier is not yet known at Gen- 
eva. The other, an F.O. letter refusing to send petrol to 
Budapest, but saying that a lorry would be sent out via 
Trieste and that it could travel backwards and forwards 
from Budapest to Bucharest for supplies which, they be- 
lieved, were available there. A rough calculation showed 



162 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

that the Journey to Bucharest and back was one thousand 
miles or nearly as far as from Budapest to London. I 
wished that Henry Labouchere had been alive and in diplo- 
macy here to answer that letter. He would have made the 
F.O. squirm. 

Tuesday, April 19, 1921. Went off to the Parliament to 
hear Count Stefan Bethlen announce the new Govern- 
ment's policy. A huge and uncommonly late Gothic pile, 
the central part with a dome too narrow at the base. Fine 
and most well-arranged inside. Had a front seat in the 
diplomatic box. Three tiers of public galleries, quite full, 
except behind the Presidential Chair where there is only 
one [tier all round the house. I should say some two 
thousand of the public could find places. The horseshoe 
system of talking-shop with tribune and president's desk. 
The Ministers sat in the front row of the horseshoe facing 
the tribune. Good light and air, Bethlen was speaking 
when I arrived and he spoke for about an hour. His wife, 
an attractive lady, in a gallery on my left. B. rather like 
Lord Lansdowne twenty years ago. He spoke clearly, his 
notes in his left hand, and using the other for gestures, 
mainly up and down as if he were hammering in nails. A 
strong Calvinist, without the agile flexibility of Teleki, and 
wanting in the sense of humour. Captain Rapaics, the 
High Commission liaison oflScer, translated for me when 
there were important points in the speech. The chief 
things seemed to be that the whole Parliament was in 
unison, that it would take three years to carry out the 
legislation already proposed, that the question of a King 
was not yet safe to discuss, and so forth, ending up with a 
quotation from Lord Salisbury about strong and weak 
nations. 

I saw the P.M. in his private room after his speech, and 
afterwards saw Count Andrassy, Count Albert Apponyi, 
Mr. Czabo, the head of the Small Holders' Party, Prince 
Windischgratz, Count Pallavicini, Mr. de Barczy, and 
several others, and had good talks with them all. I liked 
the look of the members. They resemble what our House 



M. CZABO 163 

of Commons used to be twenty-five years ago. I asked 
them how it was they managed to get such a nice lot of 
members out of universal suffrage, and they said that for- 
merly Budapest had sent its carpet-baggers round to be 
elected, but that Bela Kun's Bolshevist rule had so disgusted 
the people that they had all elected their own natural chiefs 
locally. I liked Bethlen. He is going to give me a paper for 
publication with his views. We had a brief talk of affairs. 
Czabo farms thirty-five acres. He does not talk any lan- 
guage but Hungarian, though I believe he reads French. 
We had a little talk through de Barczy, who has the curious 
post of sort of permanent secretary to Prime Ministers, 
and is a sort of Chief Whip as well. A young man, alert, 
and capable. Czabo is a good peasant type, squarely built, 
medium height. Wearing high boots to the knee, crinkly 
at the top. He controls the largest party in the house, 
namely, the Small Holders' Party, which has some eighty- 
six members. We had some talk of the agricultural and 
irrigational consequences of the Peace Treaty. He is Min- 
ister of Agriculture. He is popular, though Pallavicini 
grumbles that he is a trifle Bolshie. 

Count Julius Andrassy is getting on in years now, but 
these Magyars wear well, and both he and Count Albert 
Apponyi, who is seventy -five, are very spare, hale, and 
hearty. Andrassy is an interesting figure. He told me how 
he had always loved and admired England, and how deeply 
disappointed he and others had been that England had 
deserted her old principles and had put her name to such 
an act of injustice as the Trianon Treaty. Hungary had 
never hated England all through the war; since the Peace 
her sentiments had changed, but it was not the England 
that Hungary used to know that had made the Peace. 
Windischgratz told me that it was his grandfather who had 
made the famous remark that "no one counts below the 
rank of a baron." It seems to be the other way about now. 

Bethlen was well received by all the House. They seem a 
very united Parliament. I am found fault with when I call 
them conservative. I can believe that they often get too 



164 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

excited and interruptious. The House was built for a 
larger body than the present members. They used to be 
413 and now are little over 200. The number of empty 
benches is a perpetual reminder of Hungary's loss. The 
House of Magnates still exists to the north of the Parlia- 
ment House, but is not in being. Feeling is more or less 
liberal when not quite democratic, I am told, and the con- 
tinuance of a House of Lords is regarded as an anachronism. 
But a Second House or Senate is to be created, probably on 
a basis of county representation. Many are for propor- 
tional representation in order to secure the middle classes 
adequate voice in affairs. The Houses suspended the sitting 
for about a quarter of an hour when Bethlen sat down, and 
then I had a talk with him on the general results of the 
Treaty, but he was soon called back to the House. I did 
not see Kovacs who is said to be the brain of the Farmers' 
Party. All these figures might easily be duplicated by 
members of our House of Commons. They all talk English 
except the peasants. The Magyars have marched with the 
times, but it is odd to find a Windischgratz an advanced 
radical! Generally speaking, the oldest noble families are 
losing ground somewhat, and it is the Bethlens and the 
Telekis who are coming to the front. A critical, interested, 
and very attentive House. Ditto the public in the galleries. 
Lunched with the Gortons; the Greek Minister and his 
English wife; the Roumanian Military Attache and First 
Secretary; Mr. Athelstan- Johnson ; Mr. Robinson, the 
English Consul here; the American Military Attache and 
his wife, and a Spanish diplomatist. A nice garden on a 
terrace at the back of the house looking over the river. 

I was amused to hear that the Roumanian Minister had 
not got a house yet, and that the Military Attache had 
only a room some 2x2 metres for a bedroom and office. They 
had purchased a house, but the tenant refused to turn out, 
and it is most difficult to put one out under the present laws. 
The Magyars detest the Roumanians on account of their 
looting during the occupation following the Bela Kun 
regime. They rejoiced at their arrival, but the Roumanians ^ 



HUNGARY AND THE ROUMANIANS 165 

really came in order to treat Hungary as they had been 
treated by Germany. They are accused of having stolen 
everything moveable — plate, pictures, carpets, linen, 
furniture, even down to the cloth off billiard tables. They 
took the best thoroughbreds and let them die in the train 
for want of food. They took twelve hundred locomotives 
and left the Hungarians only four hundred. In my hotel 
Bela Kun had done five million crowns' worth of damage. 
The Roumanians did seven millions worth. They took 
literally everything, and the rooms are still without tele- 
phones as a result of their brigandage. This, of course, is 
all the Hungarian account of what happened. The other 
side of the story must be heard in Roumania. 

The Roumanian Military Attache, by name Margarete^ 
zen, or some such, tells me that he is followed by three 
agents and cannot go anywhere without his movements 
being reported. He gives the Magyars a bigger force than 
most people, and two hundred and fifty guns. He thinks 
that the country is stiff with rifles, and declares that Ger- 
man equipments keep on flowing in. He does not believe 
that when the Reparations people come here they will 
discover much, for the watch-posts stop travellers every- 
where and communicate with their friends when anything 
has to be concealed. The American thinks that this is all 
exaggerated, but admits 600,000 men capable of being 
mobilised if arms, guns, and equipment are here for them. 
I saw Hohler after lunch. A pretty sick man still and was 
only in an armchair for an hour or two before returning to 
bed. He is fully of opinion that great injustice has been 
done to the Magyars under the Treaty, and we had a good 
talk over it all. He gave me a note to the Finance Minister 
Hegediis. A capable representative, and I wish I could 
have found him fit and well. 

Went on later to the F.O. and saw Count Banffy, the 
new Foreign Minister, who was very courteous and inter- 
esting. I told him that I found a diflSculty in describing 
what the Government here was, for there was nothing 
quite like it anywhere else. Whitaker's description of it as 



166 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

a Republic seemed incorrect when they called themselves 
a Royal Hungarian Government, but I was not sure 
whether to describe it as a Monarchy in suspense, or what. 
Banffy said that the meaning of the Crown of St. Stephen 
to the Magyars could not be understood except by Mag- 
yars. Every single Magyar was a member of this Crown, 
and regarded it as the sanction of his personal rights and 
liberty. The Golden Bull was only a few years after Runny- 
mede, and the development of Hungarian life and political 
thought, except for the one hundred and fifty years of 
Turkish domination, had followed English lines. English 
constitutional history was well known here and our politi- 
cal precedents were frequently quoted in Parliament when 
they had none of their own. 

It was true that Karolyi had declared a Republic in 1918, 
but in March, 1919, the Bolshevist reign of Bela Kun had 
begun, and to this succeeded a Governor, now Admiral 
Horthy, who was much what Cromwell was in England in 
his dav. The feeling of the whole country was undoubtedly 
monarchical, but it was realised that considerations relat- 
ing to foreign policy made it highly inconvenient to raise 
the question now. Why had not Karl understood this.'^ I 
asked. He said that the facts were not yet all fully known, 
but that the whole history of this affair would eventually 
be set down. No one knew of his coming. Perhaps he had 
expected support in various matters. In any case B. said 
that every Hungarian had done his duty and that the 
Government had given Europe proofs of its good-will and 
of its desire not to disturb the Peace. 

He said that if Benes opened his campaign for freeing 
the customs within the old Empire, Hungary would be 
with him, but that Hungary's great difficulty was the mil- 
lions of Magyars annexed to the neighbouring countries, 
and the incessant complaints of ill-usage which they 
brought back with them. Scarcely a day passed without 
the return of refugees with these stories, and the result was 
that opinion in Hungary was so incensed that it would be 
difficult to make Parliament accept any economic agree- 



TALK WITH COUNT APPONYI 167 

merit that did not take into full account the interests of 
these unfortunate Magyar minorities. Who looked after 
them now? I asked, and why was it left to Scottish and 
American Unitarians to represent the hardships of these 
people? The Allies had forced the Treaty on Hungary, and 
it seemed to me their duty to control the execution of it. 
Yes, said B., but after the ratification he presumed it would 
be the League of Nations. This question of the four million 
Hungarians in the neighbouring States evidently gave him 
great concern and will affect his foreign policy very much. 
I told him that I thought Benes was ready for accommoda- 
tion. Without it I doubt that Banffy can go far. The Mag- 
yars are a chivalrous, warm-hearted people who will always 
support their unfortunate fellow-countrymen. 

We had a talk about the other effects of the Treaty and 
B. confirmed all my opinions of it. I also gather that. Sir 
George Clerk's intervention here was most happy when 
all was in disarray. Clerk told them they were not divided 
on any essential matters and that they should have a coali- 
tion Government and get on at once. They seem to have 
followed the advice exactly, and it all worked out, though 
not fully till the Socialists' were put out and the present lot 
came in. 

I talked for an hour with Banffy on these and other 
matters, and went on to see Count Albert Apponyi with 
whom I stayed till nearly eight discussing the general 
situation. He tells me that he is an independent and has 
not joined any party. He is Karlist. He watches events. 
He says that the main result of the war has been to change 
completely the mentality and outlook of all people. The 
masses, who fought the war, and expended so much blood, 
courage, and fortitude, now look for compensation to a 
larger share in the Government, and Apponyi is prepared 
to support them. They have lost faith in the old leading 
circles who brought about all their sorrows. He was biting 
about the ignorance of the Peacemakers of all the condi- 
tions of Eastern Europe. They had to be shown the posi- 
tions of the largest towns. He, with Teleki, Bethlen, Hege- 



168 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

diis, etc., were in Paris. He had found that they were 
given no opportunity of explaining their views, so had 
written to the Big Four, and finally was allowed to explain 
the situation on the express understanding that there 
should be no discussion. He spoke in French and then in 
English, L. G. seemed struck by his remark that particular 
blocks of Magyars had been violently and unnecessarily 
detached from Hungary, although they were physically in 
contact with her. L. G. had passed a note to Clemenceau 
and afterwards had asked for further explanation and A. 
had brought out his ethnographical map. He had heard 
from an English friend that L. G. had trounced his staff 
for the treatment of the Hungarians, but unfortunately 
nothing had been changed. The injustice remained. A. 
thought that the Treaty could not stand, but they had no 
intention of doing anything to upset Europe. It is pathetic 
how all these Magyars confide in the legendary justice of 
England and in her power to put matters right. I tell them 
all that the mass of our people were too much preoccupied 
with affairs more vital to them to worry about little Hun- 
gary, and that I felt sure that few outside the official 
classes knew of the measure meted out to her and what it 
all implied. 

Wednesday, April 20, 1921. Hegediis, the Minister of 
Finance, is the financial magician of Hungary and will 
either be described hereafter as a genius or a lunatic, I don't 
know which. I went to see him this morning on H.E.'s 
introduction. I found a deputation with him demanding 
higher salaries. He told them that he had doubled their 
purchasing power by raising the crown from 2200 to 1000 
for the pound sterling and that this was his system and he 
would do no more. A man of devouring energy, rapid 
thought, and torrential speech. He has, in fact, raised the 
crown as he says, and hopes to raise it to 500. This is our 
English comparison; actually these foreigners' standard of 
value is usually the Swiss franc, and the crown is compared 
with the number of centimes that it is worth in the Swiss 
money, but it is all one. He has stopped the printing of 



CONVERSATION WITH HEGEDUS 169 

paper notes, and contemplates the destruction of masses of 
them still in circulation. He is dead against foreign loans. 
He is the apostle of self-help. How does he work? 

He regards every taxpayer as a congenital liar and so 
shuns valuations and income-tax returns. He thinks 
direct taxes useless because so much is paid in kind for 
work done, and the values cannot then be appraised. He 
does not like inquisitions and knows that Hungary is not 
accustomed to them. He goes to work a different way. 
He increases the indirect taxes, and incidentally mentioned 
a new tax on cigarettes which would bring in several mil- 
lions. He taxes the war profiteer by taxing him double 
amounts on all increases since 1914. He takes for the Gov- 
ernment a first mortgage of twenty per cent on all houses. 
Here the value has to be stated, but if the value of a house 
is understated he may buy it, and sell it again. He calls 
upon all companies of whatever kind to increase their 
share capital by fifteen per cent. He takes these new shares 
and sells them back to the companies if they want them, 
and if not, then in the open market, or keeps them and his 
mortgages as securities to use for any purpose. This avoids 
all question of prying into capital and profits. He takes 
twenty per cent of all moneys on deposit in the banks. 
He proposes to take two, three, or four years' annual rent 
from all estates except the large ones as a capital levy on 
them, and if he cannot discover the amount of the rent he 
judges by the nearest farm from which figures are avail- 
able. From large estates he takes twenty per cent of the 
land and sells it to peasants and small farmers, thus mak- 
ing an agrarian law of his own; and from all these sources 
he reduces his deficit, which he found when he came in, of 
twelve milliards by seven milliards, and proposes to cover 
the remaining five milliards deficit by an internal loan. 
He has a foreign debt which he places at 130 milliards, and 
thinks that as he is the debtor of France and England 
these countries will give him time, say ten years, as 
France has already undertaken to do, to pay the debt. 
Before that time he hopes to have re-established Hun- 



170 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

gary's financial stability and to have brought back the 
crown nearly to the pre-war parity. The payment of this 
foreign debt will not then cost the country what it would 
cost to pay it now. 

He thought the Treaty, when he first read it, not bad, 
but good, because it was so bad that it could not endure. 
Had it been better it would have been worse. He has 
passed twelve out of some twenty-one Bills which com- 
plete his programme, and if he gets through his capital 
levy and agrarian schemes he thinks that the whole 
programme will be completed. It is coming up to-day. 
Much depends on what he is asked to do about repara- 
tions. He hopes that his efforts to restore Hungary's 
credit without appeals for help may be taken into consid- 
eration, and that a fair amount of Hungary's debt may be 
allocated to the Succession States which have annexed her 
territories and populations. He is against what he calls 
the morphinisation of a country by foreign loans. He tries 
to copy English finance, and by copying England and Amer- 
ica in stopping the printing of notes he hopes to advance 
in time to their standards in exchange. He is most ar- 
dently in favour of free trade in the Succession States, 
and says that England ought to help as she can sell noth- 
ing to them at the present rates of exchange. He is furious 
with Roumania for allowing no letters to go from Hungary 
to Magyars now in Transylvania, and says that his rela- 
tives and friends are constantly returning, as they find 
themselves unable to endure Roumanian rule from its 
cruelties, exactions, and corruption. He says that the 
Hungarians are the only race in Europe who are neither 
Slavs, Germans, nor Latins, and would hope that we 
should extend our protection to them. He amused me by 
saying that the first thing he looked at in the morning was 
not the state of the exchange, but the meteorological 
reports. The recent slight rain, he said, meant milliards 
to him. We had forty-two days of drought before it came. 

Whatever the result of all these schemes may be, it 
must certainly be admitted that Hungary is facing her 



COLONEL ALFRED STEAD 171 

difficulties bravely and helping herself. It is only to be 
hoped that the reparation people when they come here will 
not be such a great expense to this little country as they 
have been elsewhere, or try to exact payments from a 
people who are trying to avoid appeals to Europe. The 
best reparation is to allow Hungary to recover econom- 
ically and then trade. 

Alfred Stead came in late and told me much about his 
efforts to galvanise British trade into life again. He too is 
doing something and is one of the few Englishmen really 
working here. He gave me his views about the future of 
the Danube. Dined with the Greek Minister and his 
wife. 

An interesting visit and am sorry that it is so short, as 
there is much more that I should like to have seen and 
done here. The real obstacle to progress in this part of the 
world is the racial rivalry of all these people, who are all 
embittered by the war, while the vanquished are still more 
embittered by the Peace and by the loss of so many of 
their people by the transfers of territory. All the same I 
find that Austria and Hungary are ready in principle for 
free trade and I think it was a pity that free trade within 
the old Empire was not enforced at the Peace. I expect 
that I shall find more objections to sensible economics in 
Roumania, Jugo-Slavia, and perhaps Bulgaria than I find 
in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. I think that we should 
reconsider our attitude to Hungary. It seems to me that 
Hungary, Jugo-Slavia, and the Czechs are the strong 
people in these parts, and I doubt from all accounts 
whether Roumania will prove any serious barrier against 
Bolshevism if a barrier be needed.^ Hungary, I think, 
will, and all except Jugo-Slavia are horribly afraid of her. 
Her martial reputation has survived defeat. Altogether 
Central Europe is full of fascinating problems, but one 
must keep a more or less open mind till one has visited 
Bucharest, Sofia, and Belgrade. Then one can conclude. 

Thursday, April 21, 1921. As there was no direct train 

^ I altered my opinion after visiting Roumania. 



172 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

to Vienna to-day, I made a virtue of necessity, started at 
dawn, and made a long detour through Hungary round 
Lake Balaton and so to Vienna by 7 p.m. Very glad to 
have seen this country and to have gained this bird's-eye 
view of Hungary's wealth. The crops looking better after 
the few days of light rain. A general air of content. The 
black soil looks amazingly rich. Flocks of sheep, large 
droves of pigs, plenty of horses and cattle, extensive vine- 
yards, much beekeeping, and any amount of farmyard 
fowls. The houses well-built and looked comfortable. 
Usually single-storied, brick and tile. Balaton of great 
length and fair breadth. Hardly any coal on the railway: 
the stations had piles of wood. Went to the Imperial 
again, and managed to get dressed in time to dine with 
Sir William Goode at the Bristol, where I found a party 
of a dozen men, largely Americans, including General 
Churchill, U.SA., Walker D. Hines, just back from look- 
ing into the division of enemy Danubian shipping, the 
American Charge d'Affaires, and a few Austrians, like 
Police President Schober and the clever doctor who has 
done so much for the Vienna children. 

I was glad to see Schober again and told him that there 
were a few things I wanted still to know from him, espe- 
cially the value of his police and the gendarmerie, and the 
composition of the crowds which painted Vienna red every 
night. Were they foreign or Viennese? He thought that 
his police were very trustworthy, and that he had full 
control. The gendarmerie in the Provinces were some 
nine thousand and were also good. The so-called Army 
was no good at all. Why not abolish it and increase the 
police forces .f* Schober said that it was a Socialist toy. 
They came to him privately and admitted that it was 
useless, but publicly they had to support it. Schober 
wished that Austria might be allowed to have Militia 
service with compulsion. So, no doubt, would Germany. 
I then asked him about the night life of Vienna, and told 
him how it had disgusted many people in view of Vienna's 
food condition. I had heard various explanations given, 



MB. WALKER D. HINES 173 

what was the right one? He said that Vienna, like all 
great capitals, catered for public wants. Vienna had al- 
ways laid herself out to entertain her visitors and did so 
still. He had made a number of perquisitions, i.e., raids, 
on the various night haunts and had found that ninety per 
cent of the people attending there were foreigners, and 
that the remaining ten per cent were the new rich, largely 
Jew, and not four per cent real Viennese. 

Mr. Hines a thoroughly capable American with a 
judicial turn of mind. He thinks that the riparian States 
will accept his decision about the ships. The real trouble 
is the frontier question. The Danube is only in principle 
free. Also the trade is mainly up from Galatz and not 
down. But he thinks that there will be a big surplus of 
wheat soon, and that if coal were sent out at that moment 
the emptied barges could take coal up the river. He and 
the American Charge dAfTaires were most bitter about 
France who, they say, will soon be cordially detested 
everywhere. The French Government, or at least their 
Minister here, had committed a folly in protesting here 
against the Anschluss Vote in the Tyrol, and had declared 
that the Reparations Commission would resume its work 
and credits be withheld, but as everybody here knows 
that Goode is winding up and going away next week, and 
that there are no credits, this leaves the Austrian Govern- 
ment cold. The result of this folly, to which we weakly 
adhered, has been to give an immense fillip to the Pan- 
German Party, and there had been a big meeting at 
Vienna and the French had been hissed. I think the 
English too, and there is going to be another meeting. This 
is all exactly contrary to the suggestions which I sent to 
Lord Burnham, for I told him that the movement were 
better not taken tragically and were best ignored, as it 
was platonic and the Government here were quite sound. 
But now public feeling has been aroused. It is difficult to 
cope with such light-headed policy. 

There was a British officer present who was shortly 
going to Budapest on the military control to look into 



174 THE SORROWS OF HUNGARY 

Hungarian armaments, to see the Trianon Treaty ratified. 
He asked for my views. I told him that if there were arms 
and so on they would have been concealed long ago, and 
he would find nothing: also that I did not think it was any 
disadvantage to us if Hungary were strong. In any case she 
is entitled to the Armistice scale until the lapse of a certain 
period after the Ratification. Goode said that the Amer- 
icans here all knew my views and had read my last book. 
He had intended to dine with me alone, but the Americans 
had insisted upon coming to meet me. Several of them 
offered to help me in every possible way. I told Hines that 
the Americans would have to come into European politics 
again, for we could not do the Atlas business much longer. 
We were too small a country and our internal difficulties 
were too great. If the Americans did not come in things 
might begin to crumble. Under the rule of demagogues 
and agitators who put the nose of our E.G. out of joint, we 
could not control affairs abroad, and they must see how 
their own trade was being paralysed. They were much in- 
terested in the financial policy of Hegediis. But I can 
never recall his name. I can't get nearer to it than Hab- 
akkuk. 

Vienna, Friday, April 22, 1921. With great difficulty 
got a ticket to Paris and a sleeper. Wrote a first article on 
Hungary. Wet and cold. 

Saturday, April 23, 1921. In the train for two days and 
a night bound for Paris. Met an intelligent Director of an 
Anglo-Austrian Bank. We agreed that Central Europe 
had not thrown up any man of distinction except in Czecho- 
slovakia, and that the inability of the Austrian Govern- 
ment to impose its will on the Provinces was a very serious 
matter. Met also an educated better-class Pole, one of 
the many foreigners I have met lately who are travelling 
for American firms, not to do business, but to watch and 
report events so that the United States may be ready 
for any business going. The state of the exchange practi- 
cally prohibits business. Many of the traders have suf- 
fered heavily because they have not protected themselves 



AMERICAN OBSERVERS 175 

properly in their contracts against the practice of Eastern 
Europe to refuse to pay until the exchange improves. The 
United States are flooding Eastern Europe with their 
travellers and expert observers, and they choose foreigners 
of some position probably on account of the general Amer- 
ican ignorance of foreign tongues, and because they find it 
necessary to deal with leading people who will not talk to 
the ordinary trade traveller. My belief is that we shall 
need to make a great effort to prevent Germany, with her 
depreciated exchange, from dominating all these markets 
after reparations are finally regulated. 



CHAPTER VIII 
PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

The conversations at Lympne — Upper Silesia, the sanctions, and the Ruhr 

— Views of Lord Hardinge and Mr. Arnold Robertson — Sir Milne Cheet- 
ham on French vigour — Colonel Baldwin on Danube affairs — Mr. Robert- 
son on Rhine customs and the proposed occupation of the Ruhr — His al- 
ternative proposal — Marshal P^tain in readiness — He invites me to ac- 
company him — His views on subject races — The census of Paris — Ger- 
many's liabilities fixed at 132 milliards of gold marks — Sir Basil Zaharoff 

— Boucher pictures — The business honesty of different nationalities — A 
story of the Chinese — Zaharoff's gold plate — Comfort and civilisation — 
The Dutch Loan Exhibition — A conversation with M. Clemenceau — An 
unchanged host and house — He will write nothing about the past — He is 
opposed to the occupation of the Ruhr — France financially exhausted — 
Views on Marshals Foch and P6tain — Clemenceau' s love of Burma — 
Clemenceau's life — His wound — His reply to the Sister of Charity — A 
good story of Clemenceau — Prince Ghika and Count Zamoyski — Prepa- 
rations for a move into Germany — The situation — A motor trip to Prin- 
cess Murat's house — The 1919 Class called out, but the Essen coup put off 

— Painful moments at the London Conference — A brief visit to England. 

Paris, Sunday, April 24, 1921. Arrived from Vienna about 
noon. David Loch dined with me and we exchanged news. 
A huge and over-dressed (i.e., under-dressed) crowd at the 
Ritz: about seventy per cent American and ten per cent 
French; saw a number of friends from England. A perfect 
Babel of noise: most strange dresses and precious little of 
them, but rivulets of jewels and a blaze of lights. Not a 
good place to choose for a quiet talk. Had forgotten that 
it was a Ritz Sunday. What an odd thing humanity is. 
Monday, April 25, 1921. Finished my Hungarian articles 
and sent them off with my diary to Burnham. The French 
correspondents give such excellent accounts of what hap- 
pened at Lympne that one might almost have been there. 
Berthelot must have posted them up. Conversations not 
decisions. The latter are reserved for an Inter-Allied 
Supreme Council in London next Saturday. Germany 
twisting and turning to evade the French spear. She has 
failed to induce America to arbitrate, but is to send her 
proposals to Washington and Harding is to send them on 



VIEWS OF LORD HARDINGE 177 

to us if they seem to meet the ease. The French fixed upon 
the occupation of the Ruhr. A big job. Our press warmly 
supporting them. Lunched with Lord Hardinge and Evelyn 
Lady Alington at the Embassy. He is, of course, not in- 
formed yet of anything that passed at Lympne and so 
dares not see Briand and admit his ignorance. A fig for 
diplomacy ! 

H. agrees with me that our treatment of Greece is the 
greatest disgrace of our diplomatic history. He also agrees 
that Hungary and Greece are States worthy of our support. 
We discussed Upper Silesia, the sanctions, and the Ruhr. 
Robertson, of the Rhineland High Commission, tells him 
that the British can hold the Ruhr with four battalions, but 
it will need 250,000 French to hold it. The French propose 
to send six divisions and to call out the 1919 class. But I 
think that the Germans will meet us and that matters will 
be squared. H. told us that he and Grey had bought up 
the Constantinople quays in 1906, squaring the French 
by half the loot, and at the expenditure of £260,000, which 
the Bank of England had advanced, had made £80,000 
profit. When the war broke out, Parliament knew nothing 
of the transaction. The profits had been spent on secret 
service during the war, but now they would be accruing 
again. I said that it was Dizzy's Suez Canal coup on a 
small scale. H. had made the Ambassadors here transfer 
their Rhine responsibility to the R.H.C. because they 
were the proper technical authority. A very sound move. 
The four battalions of ours sent to Silesia were now even in 
England and the French were demanding them for the 
Rhine. H. says that all the spare troops from Palestine are 
also back in England and that Harington's position in the 
Straits is an anxious one because the Greek division at 
Ismid is leaving to join its Army and the French have 
refused to allow their troops to pass to the Asiatic shore of 
the Straits. This is the French idea of giving Harington 
the command ! We had a good talk about French politics. 
Lady A. not changed in nature since she was a girl. We 
talked of the old days at Amington. She remembered every 



178 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

corner and every picture there. Much talk of my trip and 
of events in Central Europe. A meeting of the Conseil 
Superieur to-day under Millerand, and then he held a Con- 
seil des Ministres after Briand's return. 

Tuesday, April 26, 1921. Saw Sir Milne Cheetham in 
the morning and Mr. Challis later; also Spring-Rice, First 
Secretary. Cheetham thought the French extraordinarily 
vigorous people, for they were pushing their interests 
everywhere and seemingly cared nothing for the general 
enmity that they were arousing. We thought that a 
settlement might take place with Germany, but we are 
still without the German note to the United States and 
Harding's view of it. Met Lady Juliet Trevor who is 
staying with Princess Murat, and was looking wonderfully 
well. Also pretty Mrs. Felix Doubleday. Tried to find Mr. 
Arnold Robertson who is at Princess Hotel, Rue de Press- 
bourg, and Colonel Baldwin of the Danube Commission 
at the Vieullemont Hotel, 17 Rue Boissy d'Anglas. Both 
out. Went on to the Boulevard des Invalides and saw 
Millescamps, A.D.C. to Marshal Petain, who tells me that 
the Marshal is debord6 just now, so I suppose that they are 
really fussing to get ready for the Ruhr. 

Colonel Baldwin came in to see me later. He is not only 
on the Inter-Allied Conference here, but on the Inter- 
national Commissions on the Lower Danube, Elbe, Rhine, 
etc. He tells me that the Mannheim-Regensburg Canal 
would have to be rebuilt to serve larger barges, and cannot 
be deepened owing to technical difficulties. If it is made, 
the Germans are bound by the Treaty to apply the inter- 
national rules for navigable rivers to it. The rule is that 
navigable rivers traversing the territories of more than one 
State are free and must be regarded as the sea and not be 
subject to dues and rates or obstacles to trade. He finds 
the greatest diflSculties to arise from the small minds of 
Roumania and Serbia, who try to make out that they can 
do what they please with a river of which they have the 
two banks in certain places. If they do not ratify the Con- 
ventions they cannot be made to do so! Therefore the Con- 



TALK WITH COLONEL BALDWIN 179 

vention must be arrived at by agreement. He says that the 
Roumanians hate the old Commission, dating from 1856, 
which rules from Braila to the Black Sea, but we hold to it 
because six thousand ton ships go up to Braila and we have 
forty per cent of this trade. He would like the future H.Q. 
of the Commission for the Danube from Ulm to Braila to 
be at Budapest, but Czechs, Serbs, and Roumanians resist 
this and each wants it in his own territory, i.e., at Bratis- 
lava (Pres'sburg), Belgrade, or Braila.^ So he hopes to get it 
at Vienna, in spite of jealousies, and thinks that if he can 
get it there for five years it will remain there. He thinks 
that the question of the Iron Gates is most important. He 
is interested in the French Strasbourg-Basel Canal which 
will allow two thousand ton barges to go from London to 
Basel under their own steam, but as the Canal is to have 
eight locks and will take from twenty-five to fifty years to 
build, the plan is not of any use to trade in the near future. 
This section of the Rhine, already bad, would cease to be 
navigable, as the French would divert the water into the 
Canal in order to secure power. B. says that the London 
Chamber of Commerce oppose the scheme and that so do 
the Swiss who are doing much propaganda in London 
through a man called Palliser. I still think that an im- 
proved Mannheim-Regensburg Canal, giving us a clear 
international water highway from the Port of London to 
the Black Sea, would be of great service to us and to all the 
riverside States, not only in itself, but as a protection 
against high railway rates. I wish it had been in the Treaty 
as an obligation upon Germany. He tells me that his French 
colleague is a very good fellow and works with him cor- 
dially. So would the Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians, 
who will eventually join, but at present have only a right 
to attend and express their views, and not to vote. The 
Conference will simply tell them what to do. B. thinks that 
however diflScult the French may be, our best policy is to 
maintain the Alliance. He thinks that Austria must go to 
Germany. I told him all the grave objections to it. The 

* The place chosen was Bratislava, for a terra of five years. 



180 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

Tyrol plebiscite has gone warmly for the Anschluss by over- 
powering majorities, some ninety per cent. The Italians 
not at all pleased. 

Wednesday, April 27, 1921. Mr. Arnold Robertson, the 
British Commissioner on the Rhineland High Commission, 
lunched with me. His colleagues are still M. Tirard, the 
President, who is clever, and the Belgian M. Rolin Jaeque- 
myns, who is a sound capable lawyer. Tirard is always in 
close touch with his Government. Robertson was never 
consulted about the customs line, and has not been con- 
sulted upon the pending Ruhr operation. He has a staff of 
one hundred and fifty-seven people. He wants back the miss- 
ing four battalions very badly. The customs line is estab- 
lished. It holds up all the main trade and he is not worrying 
about small smuggling. He has taken the Germans' cus- 
toms laws and has applied them to the extent of twenty- 
five per cent : he will raise it to fifty per cent and then to the 
full figure later, but it was thought best not to hit the 
Rhineland too hard at first. He says that all the German 
customs, all round all their frontiers, only brought in 
twenty millions sterling last year, and he does not expect 
more than one and a half millions from the Rhineland. His 
own staff are very good and all speak German as well as 
English. 

He tells me that the fifty per cent scheme of L. G.'s has 
merely had the effect of arresting German trade, so that 
will bring in nothing and only destroy our German trade, 
in and out. He disapproves of the proposed occupation of 
the Ruhr by the French and says that he expects trouble, 
though it is impossible to say how far it will go. He doubts 
that the French can manage the mines and thinks that they 
will make as big a mess of it as of the Saar where the output 
has fallen by sixty per cent. He expects the miners to 
strike and says that the French will need 200,000 men. He 
personally would simply hold, administer, and exploit the 
line we have now and make the German coal barges at 
Ruhrort pay dues. He would take over the whole Rhine- 
land and says that it would only mean another fifty men 



ROBERTSON ON THE RUHR AFFAIR 181 

on his own staff. He would, as a sanction, withdraw all 
undertaking to give up the Rhineland and the other points. 
He is convinced that the war will recommence and that we 
should therefore place ourselves in the most favourable 
position. The constant infraction of their undertakings by 
the Germans gives us every right to secure ourselves. He 
believes that the Germans can pay and should be made to 
pay. There were three thousand high-powered German 
motor cars at a Rhine race-meeting the other day. A rich 
German told him that the capital levy did not hurt anybody 
much, as it was based on the capital of 1917 in gold and was 
now payable by the same amount of paper ! Also one of his 
friends who made his return in 1919 was not assessed yet. 
Robertson thinks a guerilla war possible, but regards pas- 
sive resistance and strikes as the worst danger. If the Ger- 
mans do these things the French may treat the Ruhr as 
the Germans treated the French and Belgian factories and 
mines, and wreck them. I said that it all seemed to me very 
grave and as serious as August, 1914. 

He does not know whether he will have anything to do 
with the Ruhr affair. If he has, he will need one hundred 
and twenty more people to keep him informed about every- 
thing. He is not very keen about it, as he will have little 
power and will have to cover everything done by the 
French. If Robertson's scheme fails, he would apply the 
blockade and thinks America might come into it. We do 
not think that the French will accept the new German offer 
through America. R. is against the Germans taking over 
the Allied debts to America. It will put the latter on the 
German side afterwards. 

I saw Marshal Petain at four. He was looking well and 
told me that I looked younger every time I came to see him. 
We talked of my tour first. He summed up General Le 
Rond's qualities with precision. He said that he presumed 
Degoutte would put through the occupation of the Ruhr. 
It would be simple as a mihtary act, but what would follow 
no man could say. He thought that there should be a 
Governor to combine civil and military powers. He did not 



182 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

expect much trouble from the miners if they were fed, but 
the direction might have to be taken over by French engi- 
neers. All was ready. Only one Class would be called out. 
He did not think it worth while for me to go to the spot for 
this business. But if opposition arose, it might become 
necessary to occupy Berlin. Then there would be a partial 
mobilisation, and if thirty divisions were sent to Berlin it 
would be the French Army and he would go in command 
of it. The French mobilisation was very supple. It was 
divided into echelons, a first, second, and third, to meet 
such a case as this, and there would have to be plenty of 
troops on the L. of C. I said that he .could count on our 
moral support, at least, if he marched. We agreed that the 
psychological effect of occupying Berlin would be great. I 
told him that Benes would help, but preferred blockade to 
occupation. I hoped that the Silesian mines might be 
looked after, as half of Central Europe depended on them. 
Would the French classes come out willingly in case of a 
partial mobilisation.? He thought they would if the reasons 
and scope of the operation were clearly explained to them. 
He invited me to accompany him in the march on Berlin 
and I accepted. He thought that we had had enough of 
discussions and that it was time to stop talking and to act. 
He chaffed me about the Greeks, and said that we had de- 
serted them. I said yes, and did not defend our action, but 
declared that the French and Italians had betrayed them 
and us by making peace ^ separately with the Turks con- 
trary to our common stipulation. 

Petain said that he had received bad news of our position 
in India. I said that it had never been good, and that as we 
were trying to govern three hundred millions of natives by 
two hundred thousand whites the thing was bound to 
break down sooner or later. Petain said that if one left 
subject races in their native ignorance one was abused for 
it, and if one raised them up the first thing they did was to 
revolt. It was just the same in West Africa, but the only 
way was to take timely action and to trust to the feehngs 

» The French tried, but failed. They did better later. 



GERMANY'S LIABILITIES 183 

of gratitude which would follow. Later went on to see Sir 
Basil Zaharoff at 53 Avenue Marceau. Still very crippled 
from his motor accident. He is seventy. M. Bignon, the 
big Deputy, was there for a bit too. Sir B. declares that he 
is a Frenchman and is strongly for a resolute policy in 
Germany. He thought that Burnham had "la religion de 
la presse" and was very public-spirited. He was quite 
satisfied with L. G.'s statements in the H. of C. about the 
Ruhr and said that we should all have to adhere to this 
point of view whatever we thought of it. 

Thursday, April 28, 1921. The census of March 6, 1921, 
gives Paris a total population of 2,863,433, and the whole 
Department of the Seine 4,343,346. The latter figure shows 
nearly a quarter of a million increase since 1911. The Paris 
figure a small increase of 16,000. 

The French Government have informed Washington 
that the German proposals have produced an impression, 
"nettement et unanimement defavorable." (Later this 
was clumsily denied.) The Commission of Reparations has 
unanimously fixed the total of German liabilities at 132 
milliards of gold marks. This figure includes restitutions 
already made or to be made, but not the Belgian debts to 
the Allies, which is 250 millions sterling. Lunched alone 
with Sir Basil Zaharoff. We were quite agreed on public 
affairs concerning which there is little more to be said until 
we know the result of the Conference in London next week- 
end. So we talked of more amusing matters. He has many 
of his favourite Boucher pictures including an exquisite set 
of four small ones and two portraits in character of Bou- 
cher's Irish mistress. Miss Murphy, who lived with Boucher 
in his best days and figures on so many of his tapestries. 
Boucher is, qua artist, less meretricious and finnikin than 
most of the French eighteenth-century school, I think. 
That led us to talk of love and fidelity. 

We talked of the business honesty of various people. Z. 
had been much struck by reading in a book of American 
statistics that there were fewer bills protested in Spain than 
in any other country. His experience confirmed this idea. 



184 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

Have you not found the Chinese very honest. I asked? 
Z. smiled and told me a story. He had almost completed 
a large contract with the Chinese when the chief Chinese 
man began to make endless objections about the quality of 
the materials. So Z. went to see him and told him that the 
Japanese had been perfectly content and would take the 
contract if the Chin did not. The Chin remained entirely 
imperturbable. Z., exasperated, at last said, "How much 
do you want to make you report that the material is per- 
fectly satisfactory.'*" "Two hundred and fifty thousand 
francs," said the Chin blandly. Z. went off and got it. 
The Chin counted the notes with the utmost deliberation, 
and took out two or three which were a little torn and 
asked to have them replaced. Z. began to take hold of them 
to take them away to change. "No, don't do that," said 
the Chin, "you can bring fresh ones here." So Z. did, and 
then the Chin handed over the contract signed, evidently 
thinking that he had been a scrupulously honest business 
man. 

Z. has some wonderful gold plate. He told me that he 
picked up ten pieces at a sale some fourteen years ago, and 
Boucheron had every year made him a few more to match. 
So now he had a complete dinner service of pure gold (not 
silver gilt) for thirty-six people, and the only one in the 
world, he said. The pieces are fearfully heavy. We talked 
of Clemenceau. He had met him in the Bois this week, 
full of life. He would not write anything, not even of his 
recent voyage in the East. . 

Z. is not exactly broken down from his accident in which 
his head went through the top of his car, but he has at- 
tacks of giddiness in which he forgets everything. Between 
the attacks his brain is as good as ever. He is retired from 
business and says that his young men think him out of date. 
But I fancy he still runs things at Vickers. We talked of 
comforts and civilisation. I said that I thought that they 
did not exist in Europe outside England and Paris. Z. said 
that they never had. They were spurious elsewhere or 
individual to certain men who were cosmopolitans. We 



COMFORT AND CIVILISATION 185 

reminded each other that hotels of the present class had 
only existed for a very little time, and had come from 
America. It was not till the Ritz hotels started that hotels 
became really good. Ten years ago a bedroom with a 
bathroom was a rartty. Now people would not go to an 
hotel where they could not get it. Z. quoted an advertise- 
ment of a country house in England in the Times where he 
saw that there were fourteen bedrooms and only one bath- 
room. He thought that the English food was the best in 
the world, but not the cooking. When there was a good 
restaurant abroad, it was always French. If there was a 
German manager over French chefs, there was always 
something wrong with the place and the meals. We talked 
of the changed situation in Europe, and how people were 
going on believing wrongly that nothing was changed. All 
business habits had to change, we thought, and Z. agreed 
with my plan of barter on a large scale through Govern- 
ment clearing houses and said that Goodenough of Bar- 
clays' believed in it. It was the only reply to depreciated 
exchanges. 

Z. fancies himself as a cook and is often in his kitchen. 
His food is first-rate. He has a special little dish made of 
transversely sliced bananas. They are cooked inside a hain 
marie and kept constantly soaked by melted sugar poured 
over them. I hate bananas, but he made me try them. 
They were quite excellent. Huge strawberries, and 
grapes with the stalks in water which keeps them from 
getting dry and shrivelled. This was his discovery and 
other people had begun to copy it. His cigars are sent 
every month from Cuba. He opened a box dated April 4. 
They were quite soft, and he says that fresh cigars, or 
green cigars as he calls them, are to old cigars like grapes 
to raisins. But every cigar is thrown away on a cigarette 
smoker, so I would not try one. 

Went to see the Dutch Loan Exhibition at the Jeu de 
Paume Court. A bad picture gallery, light all wrong. But 
a fine exhibition. I have never seen so many Rembrandts 
together before. They were from The Hague and Amster- 



186 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

dam, with fine specimens from private collectors, notably 
Sir G. Holford, M. Schneider, etc. The Jan Steens deli- 
cious. A few good Franz Halses' including the big family 
picture which turned up one year in an Old Masters' Ex- 
hibition at Burlington House, and now belongs, I see, to 
Otto Kahn. A very characteristic Hals. Lord Crawford 
also sent several good ones, and his Hals "Le Bouffon" is 
delightful. And to think that thirty years ago old Martin 
Colnaghi used to buy Hals portraits at the price of scrap 
iron and store them because no one would have them. 
What sheep we all are! But everything good in art is like 
water. It is bound to find its right level at last. 

Friday, April 29, 1921. Went off to see M. Clemenceau 
at his old address 8 Rue Franklin at 9 a.m. The same old 
commonplace bourgeois den, with the dark enclosed court 
all surrounded by other houses, and in the dining-room, 
where I waited for a few minutes, the same dirty old wood- 
work on the walls, crying for coats of paint, and the or- 
dinary, almost lodging-house furniture, and the red carpet 
worn threadbare and in patches at the entrance. What a 
home for the man who won the greatest war in history! 
Clemenceau came out of his room to find me. He was in 
the same old clothes and with a black half-turban cap on 
his head, and an almost imperceptible bit more stiff in his 
gait. But directly we sat down opposite one another at the 
well-known writing table, I saw that there was all the old 
fire, the alert brain, the rapid thought, the clear word, the 
penetrating sarcasm, in fact the old master who won the 
war and the tiger who destroyed so many Ministries. I 
could not see a vestige of a failure of his intellectual pow- 
ers, and the eyes danced and glared and flashed, and the 
fun came rolling out with the same old humour, witticism, 
and profound knowledge of character and human nature. 

I told him that I had come to consult him on two mat- 
ters. First a point of history, second the present position. 
I said, you are among the very few who know what really 
happened in 1918 and at the peace. Every lie is current. 
You only sit still and say nothing. You are growing old. 



TALK WITH M. CLEMENCEAU 187 

When you are dead, they will tell more lies, many more, 
for they are still afraid of you. You cannot roar at them 
from beyond the tomb. Are you leaving any records of this 
tremendous time? Even if you are contemptuous of your 
contemporaries, will you not admit that we won victory at 
frightful cost, and that France at least deserves that you 
should show where the faults were made as a warning to 
her for the future .^^ 

No, said C, he had said nothing, had written nothing, 
and was not going to. He took no interest in controversies 
about the past which was over. He had lived through the 
greatest period and had done his best. It was enough to 
contemplate in silence the grandeur of it all. He took 
pleasure in his disdain of all discussion over the past. He 
had been too deeply concerned in these events, and the 
events had been too tremendous, for him not to feel it 
unworthy of him to waste his remaining years in sterile 
discussions. He did not care what people thought or said. 
It was all one to him. He had succeeded, and all those who 
had failed owed him a grudge for succeeding. Yes, he 
could destroy many reputations by a word. But that was 
no service to France. If he said what he thought of X, 
he would make bad blood between England and France 
and that was of no service to either. Let them talk. He 
knew that he was credited with a bad character because 
he spoke the truth, but that was the way of the world, and 
he did not care. He admitted the high cost of the mistakes 
of the war, but was not going to change his point of view. 
He thought it would be mean, petty, and dishonouring to 
such a great epoch if he began to say or to write that on 
such and such a date someone or other said, or wrote, or 
did something or other. It was not for him to defend him- 
self. He regarded such littleness with scorn and preferred 
silence, and his contemplation of great grandeurs. 

Then we turned to the present. Clemenceau is opposed 
to the projected occupation of the Ruhr. It was not certain 
that it would bring the Boche to heel, and there one would 
pile in tens of thousands of men and there might be shoot- 



188 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

ing which would be bad, and then strikes, and masses of 
workmen would have to be fed and perhaps have raw ma- 
terials found for them. It was not the right way to proceed 
with the Boche. If the latter had not kept his word, he 
should be made to do so by a march on Berlin after a seri- 
ous mobilisation which would give ample means of sup- 
pressing risings in rear of the armies. I said yes, it is really 
more a psychological than a political question. C. agreed, 
but said that while, during the war, he could mobilise 
every sort of financial resource, and print masses of paper 
money, France was now financially exhausted, and he did 
not see how her finances could bear the new strain which 
might be long and profitless if restricted to the Ruhr. He 
preferred more drastic measures to get the business fin- 
ished quickly. 

I happened to mention Foch. A slightly sarcastic smile 
passed over C.'s face. He told me that he appreciated the 
services which Foch had rendered, but said that on several 
occasions he had had to speak severely to Foch who owed 
him a grudge for it and had shown it. I do not think that 
he approved of Foch for allowing the Ruhr operation. I 
told him that I expected the march on Berlin to follow and 
that I hoped to go with Petain who had invited me. C. 
was pleased. He approves of Petain, of his silence and re- 
serve. He has a very high opinion of him. He thinks that 
the whole course of the negotiations since the Peace has 
been deplorable and that we have gone on from one mis- 
take to another. He foresaw the certainty of this, and 
rather than remain a spectator of these events he went off 
to the East and was delighted to meet in India so many of 
his old friends of the old front in France. C. loves Burma as 
much as I do. The gaiety of the people, unknown in India, 
where C. never saw a native woman smile, the colours and 
the lights and the rivers, but he wished that the Burmese 
ladies would not smoke those large cigars, as it was out of 
the picture. C. was not in Parliament now. He would not 
accept a seat. But he was always occupied and talked of 
philosophy. He had begun work at 4 a.m. this morning. 



CLEMENCEAU'S WOUND 189 

His wound? It did not trouble him at all. The bullet was 
still there, and he pointed to the spot a little to the right 
of his breast-bone below the throat where it lay transversely. 
It was quite happy there and had found a resting-place. 
His Sister of Charity had described it as a miracle of Heaven 
that this was so. C. had replied that if Heaven had in- 
tended to perform a miracle, it would have been better 
to have prevented his aggressor from shooting at him at 
all! The doctor's card came in and I rose to leave. C. 
begged me to write to him whenever I was in doubt and 
wanted advice. He pressed me to give him a promise that 
I would, so I agreed and he asked me to tell him everything 
that I was thinking. Did not the others consult him.? Yes, 
some of them, but when he said disagreeable things to 
them, they did not come again. "But when I say, as I say 
to you. Colonel Repington, I am your friend, then it was 
different, and we could write our minds to each other." 
What a pity that Rembrandt could not paint Clemenceau ! 
He was so like a Rembrandt to-day. Futurity will never 
understand from any photos and portraits the force and 
fire and vital energy of the man. 

Spring-Rice lunched with me. He told me a story of 
Clemenceau. A tree in the garden of a home of the Jesuit 
Fathers next door to him had grown so large that it over- 
shadowed C.'s study. So he wrote to ask that it might be 
slightly trimmed. The Father wrote back to say that it 
would not only be trimmed, but entirely removed. C.'s 
letter of thanks began: 

"Mon pere, — Je crois avoir le droit de vous adresser 
de cette maniere puisque c'est vous qui m'avez donne le 
jour . . .*' Very neat. 

S. and I had a long talk over the desperately involved 
situation here now unless the Germans gave way at the 
last moment. He thought that the French would be much 
put about if the Ruhr brought them in no money. His 
reports agreed with my view that the Boche is still much 
below par owing to constant ill-feeding for so long, but 
certainly they have invested largely abroad since the 



190 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

censorship was abolished, and he says that they are now 
buying up the press of Central Europe including the 
Hungarian. Also judging from the wealth of the Hun- 
garian peasants, who possess literally chests full of paper 
money, I expect that the German farmers are as well 
provided. 

Went to see the Roumanians and Poles to-day to pre- 
pare for my next tour. I saw Prince Ghika and Count 
Zamoyski. The former is advising Bucharest and will tell 
me to whom to apply. He spoke at some length of the ruin 
wrought in Roumania by the war, of the sufferings and 
want of the people, of the difficulty of restoring the admin- 
istration of the railways, and of the hostile action of the 
Hungarians who seemed to regard the Roumanians as infe- 
rior and almost black men. He was glad that the ending of 
the Karl episode had removed the necessity for Rouma- 
nian military action, but said that the Western Hungary 
question was still open and that its determination might 
arouse serious difficulties. 

Count Zamoyski expatiated on the troubles of Poland, 
on how it had been the scene of constant wars, retreats, 
occupations, and disturbances, and how fearfully difficult 
the whole situation was. He thought that the Polish mark 
was at a false standard. He told me that little was feared 
from Bolshevism this year, for Lenin was in a process of 
evolution towards a new and democratic form of Bolshe- 
vism based on the peasants and the security of property ! 
Lenin was now against expropriation and altogether his 
views were greatly changing. But Trotsky did not follow 
him and led a middle party, while at the other extreme 
were the Terrorists. All the intellectuals and men of posi- 
tion had been murdered or exiled, and Z. thought that the 
Russians never understood organization and had no genius 
for it, least of all the present people in control. Perhaps in 
a couple of generations leaders might appear from the new 
strata, but meanwhile we were in for fifty years of chaos. 
A nice prospect! 

Spent the evening looking into the German trouble. If 



THE GERMAN SITUATION 191 

the Germans make no fresh proposals, or those which they 
make are unacceptable, it is probable that about half the 
1919 Class in France will be called out in a few days. Men 
of this class in the devastated districts, abroad, or in certain 
categories of scholastic training will be exempt. The pre- 
paration of the movement and its execution will probably 
take a fortnight. The French intend to seize the whole 
Ruhr Valley, starting from the junction of the Wapper and 
the Rhine, passing through Solingen, Elberfeld, Barmen, 
Hagen, Unna, and then along the left bank of the Lippe 
back to the Rhine. They proposed to place a tax of twenty 
gold marks per ton on all Westphalian coal entering Ger- 
many, and expect to get from it one hundred and fifty to 
one hundred and sixty million gold marks a month, or two 
milliards of marks a year. They say that this will help us, 
as German coal costs under one pound a ton, and our coal 
double, so we shall recover our markets when the coal 
strike ends, but so far as the one hundred and fifty millions 
a month are concerned, the calculation is all based upon 
the Germans in the Ruhr continuing to work, which seems 
to me quite conjectural. There is also a prospect, as the 
French admit, that there may be troubles in the Ruhr, and 
that Germany may prevent food from going in, in which 
case the three or four million workmen of the Ruhr will 
have to be fed from elsewhere. 

In general the position of France at this moment is that 
Germany has shown flagrant bad faith by refusing to meet 
her obligations over reparations, by refusing to disarm her 
secret forces, and by neglecting to prosecute her war crim- 
inals. She demands the moral support of England in the 
measures of coercion which she is now compelled to begin, 
measures which will apply to the centre of the Imperialist 
and reactionary agitation. L. G. has publicly declared the 
German proposals to be "thoroughly unsatisfactory" and 
has agreed in principle to the Ruhr occupation. The 
Belgian Press seems solid with France. 

Dr. Simons speaks again in the Reichstag and says that 
Germany has only one thousand guns left. D'Abernon 



192 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

has left Berlin for London, but apparently only with expla- 
nations of the German offer, and no new offer. 

It is certainly necessary to bring the Germans to book. 
But are we doing it in the best way? I should prefer a 
blockade on our present line, which would cost little and 
probably take effect sooner. It is not certain that the 
seizure of the Ruhr will bring the Germans to heel and then 
we shall come to the march on Berlin plus the Ruhr. I see 
no end to the evil consequences of this action, whereas the 
silent pressure of the blockade avoids them all. We must 
all back the French heartily because we are in for it, but 
we have no troops to spare, and no chance of getting any 
with Ireland and all our other troubles. Our military de- 
crepitude will cause many other things to be done that we 
do not like. It is all a very bad business. 

Saturday, April 30, 1921. Went to see M. Barthou, the 
War Minister, in the morning. He was very agreeable, 
and advised me not to go to London next week, as they 
meant to begin to act in the middle of the week, I should 
judge by Wednesday early. So I reluctantly gave up my 
plans and wired to England. He asked me to see him 
Monday at noon by which time he will have fixed up my 
plans for me with General Buat. He seemed in good spirits 
and to believe that all would go well. Afterwards called 
on Lieutenant-General Joostens to see about a Belgian 
permit. He was very official at first, but soon expanded 
and ended by saying that I was to regard his house as 
mine. He gave me a card which will serve in the Ruhr. 
Ordered some 1/200,000 maps. Lunched with the Coun- 
tess Cahen d'Anvers, Lady Townshend, her daughter and 
nephew. Confidence in England seems only relative. W^e 
seem to be urging another ultimatum on the French. The 
latter are opposed to it and think it needless, as they re- 
gard the Treaty as the gospel. But I think it would throw 
on Simons and the Reichstag the responsibility of saying 
yes or no and would engage their responsibility directly. 
Whereas if we say nothing, they will do nothing, and this 
is the line of least resistance for their weak Government. 



TRIP TO PRINCESS MURAT'S HOUSE 193 

Philippe Millet foreshadows a financial control on the lines 
suggested by Benes. The Conference will probably begin 
this afternoon in London. Lovely weather, warm, soft 
air, and very pleasant. Went to see "Le Roi" at the 
Varietes at night and enjoyed this amusing piece and some 
perfect acting. 

Sunday, May 1, 192L A lovely day. Paris looking its 
best. Wrote a telegram to the D. T. on the situation. 
Lady Juliet lunched with me, and then we motored out 
to the country cottage of Princess Eugene Murat near 
Jouy-en-Josas, southeast of Versailles. Found there also 
Mme. M. and Princess Michel and Mr. Dodge. A charm- 
ing place with some ten acres of orchard and gardens, 
thorough country and very peaceful. The idea of taking 
away the upper storey to make an airy living-room at one 
end of three cottages built together seemed a very good 
one. A perfect place for resting and writing. We passed 
Longchamps on the way and were glad we had not at- 
tended the races. There were thousands of smart cars 
there. Much talk of many things and people. It turned 
wet as we motored back to Paris. Road bad except 
through the Bois which was looking perfection. Dined at 
the grill to avoid the Sunday mob; Lady Harcourt dining 
there too. She has been ill. We had a little talk. All the 
news is of a very sad London. 

Monday, May 2, 1921. The Conference in London was 
not in agreement yesterday. The main difference appears 
to be about the question of an ultimatum. We want Ger- 
many to be notified how she is to pay the 132 milliards 
fixed by the Reparations Committee as the total of her 
debt, and to suspend the occupation of the Ruhr till the 
reply comes a week hence. We also appear to object to 
taxing the Ruhr products. The French want to act at 
once. So do the Belgians. The Italians and Japanese 
support us. Much talk. I went to see Barthou's Chef de 
Cabinet this morning at midday. The telephone had been 
working badly and Briand's message this morning was not 
clear, but he was to telephone again at 2 p.m. and I am to 



194 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

call later at the French W,0. to learn what is decided. 
Made up my stationery kit for a fresh voyage in case 
of accidents. Saw Jemmy Watson looking wonderfully 
young and very smart. 

Called again on M. Ladmirault and found that Briand's 
instructions are not corning till between six and eight 
to-night. It is believed to-night that the ultimatum party 
have won, but that Briand will be allowed to collect all 
the troops ready for an advance by the 8th or 10th, by 
which time the German reply to the ultimatum must be 
in. "Another delay," says every Frenchman, with a 
groan and a snarl. But it is the proper way to do things. 
The only trouble is that Briand will be expected by his 
own people to occupy the Ruhr in any case as hostage, 
whereas we seem to think that this will not be necessary if 
the Germans agree to our terms. Some uncertainty re- 
mains on the point. Our action in London has not been 
presented in a favourable light by some of the French 
journalists. The French are simply aching to get hold of 
the Ruhr, and I don't think that they can keep off it. 

Tuesday, May 3, 1921. Saw M. Ladmirault and then 
General Hergault, the respective heads of M. Barthou's 
Civil and Military Cabinets. The intended Essen coup 
planned for Wednesday is off, and I am not sorry. They 
are making arrangements for me to join General De- 
goutte's staff on Monday next and will send me my in- 
structions here by Sunday. 

The impressions derived from the accounts of the 
London Conference are still not good. My impression is 
that the French mean to carry out the occupation of the 
Ruhr whether we like it or not, and that only an American 
voice can stop them. The 1919 Class was mobilised late 
last night after a telephone talk between Barthou and 
Briand. The French cannot withdraw all the young men 
from their occupations only to send them back again if the 
Boches accept the ultimatum. So they say. We have 
evidently come near to a rupture in London. Sauerwein 
says that "there have been the most painful moments 



THE LONDON CONFERENCE 195 

that can be imagined." I wonder if they understand in 
London that Briuud, or anyone else, will be upset at the 
rentree of the Chamber on the 19th if, by that date, no 
action is taken. The French are perfectly sick about the 
procession of Conferences which have taken place, and 
have ended in smoke. I told Hergault that "par acquit de 
conscience" I wished to tell him the serious objections to 
the Ruhr occupation which I entertained, the cost, the 
risks, the danger of a strike both of staffs and workmen, 
and the fearful economic crisis that might follow if Upper 
Silesia also struck, as seems is happening, owing to the 
statement that the Poles are not to have the industrial 
triangle. I said that if we needed eight thousand certifi- 
cated men to replace the German directing staff in Silesia, 
how many should we need in Westphalia, with its four 
times greater industry .f* I thought the blockade a far bet- 
ter, cheaper, and more effective weapon. But there it is, 
the French are set upon it. 

It seems that the Ruhr will be encircled by two divisions 
on the north and two on the south, with a cavalry corps 
about Griffon to the east of the industrial area under 
General Ferand. Each part will make detachments to pro- 
tect the technical staff and the new customs staff. The 
5th Cavalry Division was intended to make the raid on 
Essen. I suppose it will now await events at Diisseldorff. 
It is under General Simon and arrives to-day. They say 
that there are only one hundred and fifty French engineers 
to replace any German engineers who resign. A drop in 
the ocean. Hergault told me that the workmen were well- 
disposed and I told him that I had heard other opinions. 
The movement is to begin at "H. o'clock" — an hour to 
be named from Paris. 

There seems to be some 10,000 German police, green or 
blue, and gendarmerie in the Ruhr, and 15,000 Reichswehr 
chiefly the 6th Division 11,000 men, and the 3d Division of 
Cavalry 4000 men near the neutral region. It is supposed 
that three other Reichswehr divisions (2d, 3d, and 14th) 
could come up in six days. But the danger is not here. It 



196 PARIS AND THE SANCTIONS 

is in a general strike as a protest, in which case all public 
utility services may be suspended and the district return 
to anarchy. It is another industrial triangle with one hun- 
dred kilometres of front, Wesel-Hamm, Hamm-Solingen. 
The real German Commander is Herr Hugo Stinnes. 

Wednesday, May 4, 1921. Nothing to be done at Paris 
till next week, so crossed to London to see Burnham. 
Found at Dover that the Allies were pretty well agreed, 
but it is clear, from Austen Chamberlain's statement in the 
House of Commons yesterday, that he thinks that the 
Ruhr will not be occupied if the Germans surrender. I am 
not confident that this will be true for the French. They 
all lead me to suppose that they will occupy it as a "gage" 
in any event, and it is necessary to ascertain whether there 
is any want of clear understanding on this point. There 
are many interpellations awaiting Briand on the 19th, 
and he will be under much pressure to act. Things bad in 
Upper Silesia. The Poles have begun a movement, half 
strike, half insurrection. 

Met Lady Kilmarnock at Dover straight from Berlin. 
D'Abernon seems to remain optimistic. However, in eight 
days the situation must be cleared up one way or another. 



CHAPTER IX 
WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

The Allied ultimatum of May 5th — I return to Paris — The revolt of the 
Poles in Upper Silesia — Arrive at Mayence — The Saar — General Michel 

— French plan of concentration — The 1919 Class — The New German 
Government — General Degoutte — A long conversation — Wealth of the 
Kuhr — Berlin and the Rhineland — "Black" troops — The railways m 
German hands — The Kaiserin's funeral — Mr. Lloyd George on Upper 
Silesia — The hidden formations of the German Army — German informers 

— Wiesbaden — Fury aroused in France by Mr. Lloyd George's speech — 
Wiesbaden races — Another talk with General Degoutte — His hatred of 
^ar — General officers in France — Our incomprehensible Prime Minister 

— Dangers from future Napoleons of commerce — General Claudon on the 
Rhinelanders — A good repartee — Commandant Philippi on our new cus- 
toms duties — A lucky bargee — The Mayence Cathedral — The Guten- 
berg Statue — Our new douane at work — A visit to Coblentz — Mr. Arnold 
Robertson — A conversation with his staff — Captain Troughton — Cap- 
tain Georgi — Their views on the customs and the Ruhr — Ruhr statistics 

— Our battalions ordered to Silesia — Lunch with M. Tirard — A talk with 
M. Rolin Jaequemyns — General Allen's opinions — Return to Mayence — 
M. Briand's great speech — A German bank director on the economical 
situation — Levies, taxes, and wages — A review — Visit to Frankfort — 
The Stadel Gallery — The Lenbachs — Consul-General Gosling — Goethe s 
house — A talk with tlie editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung — A final con- 
versation with General Degoutte — Conclusions from three weeks on the 
Rhine. 

Paris, Sunday, May 8, 1921. Returned to Paris from Lon- 
don to-day. 

The Allied ultimatum to Germany was handed to the 
German Ambassador on May 5 at 11 a.m. in Downing 
Street. The time limit expires May 12. The Germans are 
invited to carry out the directions of the Reparations Com- 
mission, as well as the disarmament and the trial of the 
war criminals, and to notify their resolve to do so, failing 
which the Ruhr Valley will be occupied, and such other 
naval and military measures will be taken as may be re- 
quired. 

There is a slight balance of behef in the probability of 
a German surrender, but no certainty, and Berlin is in 
confusion from the resignation of the Government. Mean- 
while the Poles rose in Upper Silesia on May 2, and prac- 



198 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

tically control the country east of what is called the 
Korfanty line. The French troops are not attempting 
to suppress the rising. The Italians have had some losses 
in trying to do so. We have no troops there now. It is an 
attempt by the Poles to forestall in their favour the decision 
of the Supreme Council on the plebiscite, and it is said to 
be due to Polish knowledge that the English and Italian 
Members of the Commission had not given the industrial 
triangle to the Poles. Who told the Poles.? They seem to 
have learnt the story just before Le Rond set out for Paris. 

It is at least a curious coincidence that the Poles rose on 
the same day that the French intended to seize Essen. The 
Germans ask the Powers to suppress the revolt and clearly 
leave it to be seen that they are prepared to do so if we do 
not act. A nice state of affairs! The Poles are a lawless 
people, and the French, instead of acting judicially, are 
supporting them for political reasons. 

In the evening German opinion appeared to be harden- 
ing against acceptance. One of the obstacles is the inabil- 
ity of the Government to make Bavaria disband her Ein- 
wohnerwehre who now number 320,000 men, and have, by 
the explicit admission of Dr. von Kahr, 240,000 rifles, be- 
sides guns and machine guns. Theoretically this is a pri- 
vate organisation, but it is paid by the Reich and Bavaria, 
and its H.Q. are in the Ring Hotel at Munich. The men 
are carefully selected and are trained and do musketry. 
The whole thing is dead against the spirit and letter of the 
Treaty (Art. 160). 

Monday, May 9, 1921. Called at the French W.O. in 
the morning. I am to go to Mayence and report to the 
Commandant Camus of the Q.G. at the Palais de Justice. 
Took tickets. Left at night 9.15 p.m. 

Mayence, Tuesday, May 10, 1921. Arrived Mayence 
1 P.M. The usual plentiful crop of customs houses. A 
French douane at Forbach, a second Saar Government 
douane at Nambonn, and a third German investigation at 
Turkimuhle. The Saar seemed very busy and prosperous, 
but a German fellow-traveller employed there told me that 



GENERAL MICHEL 199 

they were overstocked and were only working four days a 
week. Owing to shorter hours and five years of under- 
feeding the output of the basin was only about two-thirds 
that of 1913, There had been trouble at first between 
French and Germans, but all was peace now. 

Went to the Hollander Hotel on the Rhine. General 
Degoutte, the Commander of the Inter-Allied Army of the 
Rhine, is away for the day at Diisseldorf. Saw his Chief 
of Staff, General Michel, at 4 p.m. and had a talk. The 
concentration goes on. He showed me the plan of it day 
by day. It will not be completed till the morning of the 
15th, but there will be enough troops by the night of the 
12th to carry out the Ruhr coup. There are six French 
and Belgian divisions of Infantry, three French Cavalry 
divisions, and a small British detachment of three squad- 
rons and some Tanks. The operation orders are pro- 
visional, and will not be carried out until the word comes 
from Paris. I said, "Then you, at least, are en regie, mon 
general." We thought that if the Boches did not give 
way, Briand would fall if no action were taken before the 
19th. M. has no idea what the Germans will decide, but 
he thought that they would postpone a reply to the last 
moment. He told me that the 1919 Class had come up 
well and showed a good spirit. There were no shirkers, 
but they were much incensed against the Boches, and 
showed their feeling towards the tame Rhinelanders. M. 
thought that the total available Allied force was 80,000 
men, but said that I could say 100,000, and he imagined 
that Paris had still not settled what to do about the civil 
side of the Government. He thought that the state of 
siege would be proclaimed at first and that the soldiers 
would rule. Also that the workmen would be quiet, and 
probably the mining staff too, as he did not think that 
they would sacrifice their business for mere political objects. 
Michel a good clear-headed man, very French, tall, and uses 
glasses. 

I thought that all the German part of this valley and 
the hilly region between it and the Saar looked wonder- 



200 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

fully rich and well-cultivated. The crops, vines, and fruit 
trees were most promising. There are some tirailleurs 
Algeriens here; very smart chaps: they are on duty at 
Headquarters, and I should be sorry for a Boche who tried 
to force the consigne. There is also a regiment of Morocco 
tirailleurs hereabouts, reckoned of the first quality. De- 
goutte formerly commanded the famous Morocco Divi- 
sion. These are very serious troops. Black troops there 
are none here now. One must not call the North African 
troops black, because they are not, or at least very few of 
them. The Rhine here is fearfully low, the lowest known 
for one hundred and sixty years, they say. The boats can 
hardly use it and only at one-fifth to one-third of their 
usual loads. The Alps without snow in the winter and the 
present drought are cause and effect. If Nature makes up 
for it by a wet summer, where will be our harvest .f^ ^ 

Degoutte's A.D.C., Lieutenant Chapel, of the Cuiras- 
siers, dined with me and we had a great talk about events 
and politics. He says that Degoutte works from 9.15 to 
12.30 and from 2 to 7 and never stops working. 

Wednesday, May 11, 1921. This morning came the news 
that a new German Government of the Socialists, Demo- 
crats, and Centre had been formed and that the Reich had 
accepted the Allied ultimatum last night by 221 votes to 
175. Later there came the official confirmation to H.Q. 
here, but from the Belgians and not from Paris. The text 
showed that the acceptance was complete and without 
reservation. I went to see General Degoutte at the Palace 
of Justice at eleven, talked with him alone for an hour, and 
then walked round with him to the Grand Ducal Palace 
where we lunched together alone, in overheated rooms, 
and stayed talking there till 4 p.m. We covered much 
ground in these five hours, and discussed the Ruhr opera- 
tion, the conduct of the Germans, the profits of the Ruhr 
stroke, future dealings with Germany, the chance of an- 

^ Nature did not. The summer was abnormally hot and fine, producing a 
great wheat crop, except in parts of Russia, where the crops were burnt up and 
a terrible famine was caused. 



GENERAL DEGOUTTE 201 

other war, the state of Central Europe, and the case of 
Austria, besides many other points of politics, economics, 
and commerce. The very deuce of a pow-wow. 

In general, I am not sure that General Degoutte is very 
sorry that the operation in the Ruhr is apparently off. He 
did not anticipate many difficulties if he still had to march, 
but there is an element of uncertainty, though he will not 
quite acknowledge it. He declares that one-fifth of the 
whole wealth of Germany is contained in Westphalia and 
that in French occupation it would be a paying concern. 
He tells me that he is exactly informed of the state of 
German opinion in both Ruhr and Rhineland, and that all 
the opinions of the Socialistic and Bolshevist parties are 
known to him. Like General Michel, he is sure that the 
directing staff will remain and that they will be punished 
by the German Government if they leave and return to 
unoccupied Germany because the products of the Ruhr are 
quite indispensable to German industry. He is sure that 
the workmen will remain if they are fed, and declares that 
he will improve their position, and that the savage repres- 
sion of their rising by the Reichswehr put them against all 
the Right parties in the Reichstag. He looks to the impo- 
sition of a dime on all Ruhr products; thinks that it may 
amount to two hundred milliards of francs a year; that 
France can recoup herself out of this indemnity without 
paralysing German trade, and that the rise of German 
prices will help both us and France. He admits that it is 
impracticable to replace the German staff's of industries if 
they leave, but he does not believe they will. He is not 
surprised at the German surrender, and eight days ago had 
reported to his Government that this would happen. 

He could not admit that the operation would still take 
place unless some new fact came out, for France always 
kept her engagements, and it was clear to him that a Ger- 
man surrender implied the abandonment of the plan. But 
Paris and public opinion might be very disappointed. They 
would not get their gage, nor their money immediately, 
and of course it would be said that there was just one 



202 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

more German promise and that it would be broken like all 
others. 

He had received no fresh instructions from Paris. The 
concentration would go on, and he was off to Diisseldorf 
for forty-eight hours to-morrow to inspect newly-arriving 
troops. He meant to congratulate them on having caused 
the German surrender. 

General Degoutte reminded me that we had met at 
General Gouraud's Headquarters in 1916 — I remember 
the occasion well. He said that when he arrived here, in 
succession to Mangin, he had done his best to ingratiate 
himself with the Rhinelanders and had promised to do all 
that could be done for them to make them happy. But 
before long — and apparently about the same time that 
General Nollet's Commission of Control began to en- 
counter obstruction at Berlin — Degoutte found that Ber- 
lin was putting spokes in his wheel and issuing secret orders 
to the Germans to have no dealings with the French of- 
ficers or French members of the Rhineland High Commis- 
sion. Berlin sent Prussian officers to take control of every 
sort of service and to instruct youth sub rosa in patriotic 
duties. These men ran everything because the Rhineland- 
ers were so submissive, and there came about a great 
change in the behaviour of the population towards the 
French. Even his Generals had been hustled, French 
flags ^ had been torn down, and there had been other inci- 
dents. This accounts for the strict consigne to the Algerian 
and Moroccan Troops who guard the Headquarters and 
the Grand Ducal Palace. D. told me that he could not 
afford that the grand chef should be houscule, so he always 
took his car to his house, not two hundred yards distant, 
except on this occasion when he walked round with me, 
and when he wanted exercise he motored out some miles 
and then got out to walk. I noticed that he even unlocked 
with his own key the various doors in his Palace. But all 
the same he had told someone that he would only care to 

* The British practice of hauling down the flag at sundown is not generally 
followed by foreigners. 



BLACK TROOPS 203 

be Kaiser of the Germans, if he were Kaiser at all, as they 
were so perfectly obedient to any mot d'ordre. . 

D. is an omnivorous reader and an indefatigable worker. 
He seems very well-informed of everything that is going 
on. He believes that the Germans intend to wage a war of 
revenge at the first favourable moment and does not see 
how it is to be prevented. He watches them as a cat 
watches a mouse. We thought that if the Control Commis- 
sion remained for some years and the French held the 
Ruhr, the Germans could not do much, and D. only asked 
for five or six years' grace until France had restored her 
finances and general position. He approved of the Repara- 
tions Commission in its new Control shape at Berlin, but 
did not know whether it would be effective. 

D. said that he had not intended ^ to take any so-called 
"black troops" into the Ruhr. They were not really black, 
being Berbers from North Africa, and in the two large 
native guards which he inspected as we walked to his house 
there were only two or three real blacks. All the others 
were fairish men, fine-looking chaps, the Algerian and 
Tunisian men with the red Chechia or fez, and the Moroc- 
cans with the khaki Chechia. They had been much abused 
by the Germans who hated them, and there had been a row 
the other day in which a German had been killed. The 
man who had killed him was before a conseil de guerre and 
would probably be condemned to death, but D. said that 
he might find a difficulty in approving such a sentence, 
since all the native troops knew how constantly they were 
insulted by the Germans. Troops are generally on the 
move in Mayence with tambours and clairons — making a 
racket. The native troops make a good impression when 
under arms. They are smart and steady. Our conversation 
was so long and ranged over so much ground that I cannot 
jot it all down. Degoutte is short in stature and short- 
sighted. He has pleasant manners, is very steady, and has 
much breadth of mind and coolness in judgement. He does 

^ He told me later that this had been imposed upon him, but did not say by 
whom. 



204 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

not spare himself and keeps a very sharp eye on the Ger- 
mans and all their works. He was particularly cordial and 
thanked me for all that I had done for France since 1906. 
I think that he would have kept me talking till night had 
I not at last risen to go out of sheer fatigue of talking. 

Walked about the town in the late afternoon and wired 
a message again to the D. T. The name of Conrad Tack on 
a bootseller's shop would have appealed to Dickens, I 
thought. Decided to await events here for a short time. 
One could not find a better centre in present events. 

Thursday, May 12, 1921. Went round to see General 
Michel. There is no news except that Marshal Foch has 
sent instructions suspending all movements until further 
orders. This does not affect the concentration which pro- 
ceeds according to plan. I asked about the German man- 
agement of railways from the French frontier. Was this 
wise, and could not the German personnel saboter the lines 
on a word from Berlin? Michel thought they could, but all 
the lines used for the concentration were being guarded by 
the Allies, including Americans and British, and all the 
main bridges were held. So the Boches could not do much, 
and minor damage could be quickly repaired. 

The arrival of French cheminots in case of need had been 
foreseen. The telegraphs were also in German hands, but 
the French had their ciphers, and all the main groups of 
forces, besides Paris, of course, were in wireless touch. 
Michel thought that the 1919 Class would probably re- 
main till the end of June, and be replaced by the young 
Class in July. The latter had come in on April 15 and had 
not done much training owing to the 'flu, but would be fit 
enough for police duties, he thought. 

The satisfaction which I feel on account of the very cor- 
rect attitude of the French soldiers here is considerably 
mitigated on reading the French Press of the 12th on its 
arrival here this afternoon. It seems almost to gloat over 
the difficulties which Germany will find in meeting our 
demands for reparation and disarmament, and, after giving 
long lists of both, lays stress on a promise said to have been 



PROVOST DE LAUNAY ON GERMANY 205 

given by L. G. to Briand at the London Conference to the 
effect that the Ruhr sanction would be apphed on the re- 
port of the Reparations Commission or of the Mihtary 
Control Commission affirming any want of obedience on 
the part of Germany. 

It will be only too easy to constater this fact with a little 
ill-will, and I see that there has been a conference at the 
Elysees on disarmament at which Millerand, Briand, the 
chief Ministers, Foch, and Weygand were present. The 
object appears to have been to discuss the measures to be 
applied to carry out the disarmament indicated by the 
AUies in their letter of January 29, 1921. There will not be 
much difficulty in convicting Germany of manquements if it 
is still desired to occupy the Ruhr. Here also is Provost de 
Launay in the Eclair talking very large of immense armies 
which Germany can mobilise in a few days. He talks of 
seven divisions of cavalry and twenty-one of infantry 
supported by innumerable formations of Einwohnerwehre — 
all leading up to the conclusion that the Ruhr must be 
occupied at once. 

I must ask Degoutte on his return who has been posting 
up P. de L, during his tour in this part of the world. D. 
certainly told me that the Germans had done marvels, and 
that he was much struck by the organisation which was 
better than anything he could have devised, but de Launay 's 
story is a bit thick, and I personally cannot conceive how 
the Germans can dream of war after all their sufferings 
which every soul here remembers so well. Even now the 
people here have black bread, no butter, and there is no 
milk except for the children, while the taxes on the working 
people seem to me far higher than ours. The real trouble 
is the abandonment of the Anglo-American guarantee of 
France against another German attack. The French now 
know that they must protect themselves and are nervous 
about the future. The camouflage of secret German arma- 
ments adds to the anxiety. The French have a sense of 
being tricked and are ready to believe anything. 

Did X's commission and bought a good Zeiss No. 8 race- 



206 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

glass with good leather ease and strap for £4.15.0! Took 
the opportunity of having my eyes examined by the best 
German oculist here. He charged me '2s. 6d. I Also he found 
my eyes quite sound and fitted me out with a pair of glasses 
for reading the infinitesimal print of Bellows and Dr. 
Feller. I suppose that in London I should have had to pay 
seventeen guineas for the opinion and the Zeiss glasses 
instead of £4.17.6. 1 was rather amused in one shop to see 
that the hilts of officers ' swords are now made into stands 
for electric lights; not quite swords into ploughshares, but 
very near it. The windows are filled with photos of the 
Kaiserin's funeral. It seems to have been a tremendous 
Imperialist demonstration in which crowds of old officers, 
officials, students, etc., took part, the whole thing on an 
imposing scale and all the best-known old leaders present. 
I don't wonder that it made the French thoughtful. The 
Mainz public crowd round these photos, very silent and 
respectful. There was no doubt where their sympathies 
lay. There is about as much real Republicanism in Ger- 
many as there is in Pall Mall. 

Friday, May 13, 1921. Wrote and sent off a longish 
article to the D. T. on the French attitude towards all this 
German trouble. Had a talk with General Michel in the 
afternoon and am to begin my investigation of the secret 
German organisations to-morrow. There is no news and 
all is quiet, except in Upper Silesia on which subject our 
press seems to be speaking stiffly of French partiality, and 
I do not wonder. Took a stroll round the town. All the old 
names, the Kaiser Strasse and the rest, remain as of old. 
Rather a pleasant town, with old and modern buildings in 
turn and with fairly good shops. Am amused to find the 
stupendous difficulties in the way of sending the glasses to 
X. The formalities and papers to be signed are intermi- 
nable. In fact every conceivable difficulty is thrown in the 
way of sending anything out and of getting anything in. 
I am following it up as a practical experiment. 

Talked to various people. The six German regiments in 
garrison here in 1914 are said to have lost 30,000 men 



LLOYD GEORGE ON UPPER SILESIA 207 

killed in the war. I doubt whether there is a first favourite 
for the future throne. But they all admit that they want 
a Constitutional Monarch, and some one to represent Ger- 
many worthily. Ebert, they say, was a distiller, then kept 
a pub., became an editor, and is now President. How 
could he talk to Queen Mary? they ask. Why should he? 
I mentally reply. Degoutte and I had a long talk of Russia 
the other day. I said that I preferred the Bolshies to a reac- 
tionary Government which would surely join Germany. 
It was better to have the Soviets and fifty years of chaos 
than a Russian reaction leaning on Germany. Degoutte 
wanted a sealed-pattern Republic, and I thought we could 
not get it in Russia. 

Saturday, May 14, 1921. All quiet on the Rhine, but in 
upper Silesia things still bad. L. G. makes a statement 
in the H. of C. of a firm and notable character, so far as we 
can judge by the summary, against the Polish action, and 
says that we shall not accept the fait accompli. It was quite 
time to speak out. Wrote an article on Travel in Europe, 
and after a talk with General Michel on Upper Silesian 
matters went to his Second Bureau to talk with Com- 
mandant de Charry and Captain Florange on the hidden 
formations of the German Army. At my request they gave 
me a map showing the distribution of the Reichswehr. It 
is pretty strictly on the lines of Versailles, but it is also 
considered more than probable that the organisation pursues 
the old aim of restoring the twenty-one Army Corps of 
1914. Each regiment of infantry is known, or believed, 
to possess three complete sets of arms, clothing, and equip- 
ment, and the seven divisions could become twenty-one 
on expansion, while the cavalry could become seven 
divisions. 

It is necessary that the redundant arms and equipments 
should be given up. There are also more engineers than 
are allowed and the bridge-trains are enough for an Army 
Corps. The depots might similarly expand. The twenty- 
one divisions, if formed, might number 300,000 men, and 
it is probable that they would be completed as fast as the 



208 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

Reichswehr was made up when it went to put down the 
Ruhr Revolt. This the French think to be only a covering 
force. The National Army is expected to group itself be- 
hind on the Schupo or Schiitzpolizei nucleus, which is the 
old dog in a new doublet, namely the old Sicherheitspoli- 
zei abolished by order of the Allies, but in fact handed over 
to the Ministry of the Interior and only renamed. It has 
80,000 men in Prussia, and in all 150,000 men. It is con- 
sidered to be the cadre of the future national army. How 
they will be formed is not precisely known, but the livrets 
or small books of 7,000,000 men are in existence and touch 
is kept with men through the pensions officer. There is also 
a system of passing men through the Schupo for nominally 
experimental training stages, which looks ominously like 
the old Prussian camouflage after 1806. Given the many 
rifles and machine guns known to exist, and the proba- 
bility that many guns are also concealed, a good-sized 
body of troops could be formed, probably 1,500,000 it is 
thought, and the idea is that the triplicated Reichswehr 
would delay an enemy until this force was assembled in the 
interior. Such an idea had been formulated by a German 
General and is becoming a sort of doctrine. 

Behind all this is the Orgesch (organisation Escherich), 
the Einwohnerwehren, and other nondescript bodies whose 
disbandment the Allies are expected to demand. If they 
go, Florange expects the old Kriegerverein in a new form 
to take their place. This old institution has been suddenly 
galvanised into life again in the last three weeks and is in 
course of formation on a regimental, battalion, and com- 
pany basis, but nominally, of course, only as an old com- 
rades' association. It takes in all the men who fought in 
the war, or may do so. It is an organisation which was not 
explicitly forbidden at Versailles, but was forbidden to oc- 
cupy itself with military matters. Even if it is suppressed, 
something will revive in the guise of sporting, athletic, or 
gymnastic clubs. Even football is now regarded not as a 
sport for sport, but as a sport for war training. One must 
apparently regard every German football team as an 
eventual platoon I 



GERMAN INFORMERS 209 

We had a talk over it all. Florange is well-posted and 
has everything at his fingers' ends. I said, "Do you really 
believe that a people who have suffered so much want war 
again.^" Florange said. No, the people did not, but the 
old Imperialist and reactionary parties wanted to re-estab- 
lish a strong Germany and it was difficult to prevent them 
from doing so. This disastrous docility of the German 
people, and the hankering of all but the Socialists for 
Monarchism, made many things possible. There was all 
this huge mass of officers out of work who longed for the 
re-establishment of their prerogatives, and these people 
naturally wished to act soon, as they could not afford to 
wait. If we could put off the possibility of a war for fifteen 
or twenty years, until this class and the trained soldiers 
were hors de cause, and the old military spirit had given 
way to the civil spirit, we might get over the danger of a 
fresh German aggression. It was also necessary to bring 
many fortresses and coast defences into line with the Treaty. 
Konisberg, for example, is only allowed (I do not know 
when this rule was made) to have twenty-two heavy guns 
and actually has seven hundred or eight hundred. The 
Bavarian Einwohnerwehren have 240,000 rifles on their 
President's own admission, and all this was quite outside 
the Treaty rights, so there was a good deal to be done. 
Nollet and his people had done marvels. The Germans 
were champion informers (denonciateurs) and frequently 
gave away for money the hiding-places of arms. Even if 
Nollet and his people came away, Florange assumed that 
we should leave in Germany a good service of information. 
I asked about the cavalry squadrons being called by the 
names of the old regiments. Did this mean that each squad- 
ron would be the nucleus of this old regiment when it was 
resuscitated.? Had they its uniform.? No, said Florange, 
they all had the same uniforms, but there was a badge of 
the old regiment on the right arm to recall the traditions of 
the old regiment, and one could deduce from that what 
conclusion one liked. 

Whit Sunday, May 15, 1921. Wrote on the German 



210 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

Army for the D. T. till late last niglit. Motored to Wies- 
baden. The consul undiscoverable.^ A fine town with solid 
buildings and pleasant, broad, shaded streets, with avenues 
of limes and chestnuts. Lunched at the Kurhaus. Many 
people, but no English. Pretty gardens with lake and 
shaded walks. An agreeable spot. Cooking awful. Com- 
pany common. The only pretty women were French. 
Came back through Bibrich. The French are in all the 
German barracks which have been rechristened "Quartier 
Joffre," "Gouraud," and other French Generals' names. 
The Rhine continues to fall and huge sandbanks appear in 
the stream. The defect of Mainz is the want of hills near 
the river, such as those which give such distinction to 
Prague, Budapest, and Coblenz. It is flat and dull, but 
beyond Wiesbaden one gets to the lower Taunus and there 
are some wooded hills which look agreeable. The Kurhaus 
seems to have every attraction in the form of music, gam- 
bling, reading-rooms, gardens, and so on. 

L. G.'s speech against the Polish Putsch in Upper Silesia 
makes the French wild. It is perfectly justified, so far as 
Korfanty's banditti are concerned, but I think, on reading 
the text, had better not have been delivered, as it is in- 
directly a severe criticism of the French, does no good, and 
only embitters the controversy, already acute enough. 
Briand replies in an address to French journalists, and says 
that France accepts no orders from her Allies. L. G.'s sug- 
gestion that the Germans might be allowed to retake Upper 
Silesia is a serious matter. I fancy the Germans will not 
use the Reichswehr in Silesia for fear that the Polish Army 
may cross the frontier. They seem to be collecting bands 
to oppose bands. If they attack the Poles, L. G.'s speech 
will be considered responsible, and the Germans are pretty 
sure to come in conflict with the French, who will immedi- 
ately occupy the Ruhr. All very unpleasant. Meanwhile 
the Allies are responsible for order and security in the 
Province, but we have no troops there now, the Italians are 
few, and the French will not oppose the Poles, who are 

* He had been abolished. 



WIESBADEN RACES 211 

their allies — a nasty tangle. English opinion seems to be 
almost entirely with L. G. At this rate the French Alliance 
won't last much longer. 0! golden silence! 

Monday, May 16, 1921. A Bank Holiday here. Went to 
the cathedral in the morning. A large Romanesque-Gothic 
pile shut in by houses built on to it almost all round. A 
certain simple grandeur within, but could not look over it, 
as it was full of little girls who were receiving, I suppose, 
their first communion. The cathedral was full and there 
were rows waiting without. The girls were all in white from 
head to foot with white wreaths and their hair down fas- 
tened with white bows. A great many men in the congrega- 
tion. The Centre Party must be pretty strong here. It is 
the most solid and consistent of all the German parties. 
I wonder whether a State or a Church gains most from 
union and loses most by separation? I should say the State, 
in both cases. 

Began to study the Ruhr. 

Went off in the afternoon to see the Wiesbaden races. 
They began at the unusual — to us — hour of three and 
ended at seven, which is more convenient than Ascot hours 
except for visitors from afar. A very pretty course with 
the pleasant scenery of the Taunus foot-hills in the back- 
ground and a lovely day. Spacious stands, in tiers like the 
Coliseum, and not in rows as in our stands. Nice lawns in 
front and a band. I should say five thousand people at 
least. Degoutte and many French officers and their fam- 
ilies and men who all kept apart from the Germans. I 
saw no English there. There was flat, hurdle, and jump 
racing. The horses were quite good and the riding vig- 
orous. Hundreds of cars were there, and masses of money 
poured into the totalisators. A good middle and upper 
class country attendance. Many brought their children, 
even quite young ones, a variation rather pleasant. Re- 
turned with Colonel Legros, of the Artillery, who is in 
charge of Army sports at the French H.Q. 

Tuesday, May 17, 1921. Finished the Ruhr article last 
night and sent it off with that on the German Army, both 



212 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

registered. The political news to-day is bad. The French 
press unanimously falls upon L. G.'s speech and cannot 
abuse it enough. Briand has refused to meet L. G. at 
Boulogne and says that he must consult his Parliament 
first. He also says that any invasion of Upper Silesia by 
the Germans will be regarded as an act of war and that 
France will take action in the West. Generals Nollet and 
Masterman on May 13 called on the Germans to fulfil the 
requirements of their note of January 29 by May 20. This 
demand covers disarmament of land and air forces. But 
other reports say that the Orgesch, etc., are given till June 
20, and that July 15 is the final date for completion of all 
satisfaction. 

I had a long talk with General Degoutte in the afternoon. 
He is off again to Diisseldorf to-morrow to inspect the 
latest arrivals, but he has no fresh orders and is not in- 
formed of political events, though he naturally sees, as I 
do, what the Paris Press is saying. He says that the newly 
arrived troops are magnificent, but require a little calming 
as they are rather full of fight. He says that we must re- 
member all that these men have seen in the ravaged prov- 
inces, in many cases their homes, and the indignities suf- 
fered by their women-folk. He mentioned the case of a 
young officer who had hustled some Germans at some 
place. His Colonel had come into D.'s office to plead for 
him. "Punish him, General, yes, but I wish you to know 
that his mother was outraged by the Germans and that the 
officer can plead extenuating circumstances." "How could 
I remain deaf to such an appeal.^" asked D. It occurred to 
me that if trouble broke out in the Ruhr with the French 
on one side of the basin and the Belgians on the other, there 
might be some ugly work. I do not know which of the two 
people hates the Germans most, or feels the more poig- 
nantly that the German has never been repaid in kind. 

We talked of yesterday's racing. D. told me that he had 
done everything possible to placate the Rhinelanders and 
bring them into a good spirit, mentioning many generosi- 
ties, gifts, and help, but he did not seem to think that much 



GENERAL OFFICERS IN FRANCE 213 

had come out of it all. We laughed at all the throughbreds, 
the well-dressed crowds, the cars, and the pari-mutuel at 
the races, and did not feel very uncertain about the wealth 
of this country. D. told me that he hated war. He had not 
belonged to a military family or the aristocracy, but to a 
bourgeois stock who had never been in the Army, but he 
had come in to repay the debt of 1870. I told him that the 
general officers' list in France now aroused my enthusiasm. 
They were a splendid set of men and politics seemed utterly 
uncongenial to them. Yes, he said, time was when politics 
governed the upper ranks, but the political favourites had 
gone down in the war, and now only the real fighting Gen- 
erals remained. It no longer sufficed to be an aristocrat, or 
to have been brought up by the Jesuits, or even to be in 
the pocket of some advanced Socialist Party. There were 
all classes represented now, and not only bourgeois-bred 
Generals, but some of inferior provenance. One General on 
the Conseil Superieur was the son of a gendarme. Politics 
were absolutely barred, and were in fact detested by all. 
We talked of Petain. D. agreed that he had three times 
saved the cause during the war, first at Verdun, secondly 
in the June, 1917, mutinies, and lastly after Gough's defeat 
when he had so rapidly taken over the whole English front 
during a disastrous battle between the Oise and the Somme 
and had held the enemy. D. thought the mutinies had been 
exaggerated. "Only" ten divisions had been affected by 
them ! I did not know there were so many : His own com- 
mand had come up to replace some of those who had given 
way and was absolutely unaffected by the bad feeling. 

D. and others here find L. G. incomprehensible; — one 
thing one day and another thing another. "White to-day, 
black to-morrow, and red the day after," as one General 
said to me. What was really important, said D., was that 
we should keep together as we had need of each other. No 
one defends the Polish Putsch to me, but they ask how the 
French could be expected to shoot their Polish Allies and 
are amazed that L. G. should suggest as a possibility that 
the Germans should enter Upper Silesia to do so. The 



214 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

trouble, thought D., had come from the two months* delay 
since the plebiscite and no decision. If he and I had the 
affair to settle, we could do it in half an hour. The way to 
succeed was not to make flaming speeches, but to get round 
a table and talk it over quietly. He thought the whole 
affair very grave. No troops would go from here. As Gen- 
eral Michel said, "We cannot be everywhere." We are all 
looking forward to the 19th when Briand meets the Cham- 
bers. Meanwhile D. is asking his troops to remember that 
they have only come to do police work, and not to become 
excited or vengeful. He thought that France wanted peace 
above all things and he was certainly not seeking adven- 
tures. A coup d'etat by a French General in these days was 
absolutely impossible. The whole Army thought like that. 
I believe D. to be entirely sincere in his hatred of war and 
desire for peace. But he loves his troops and prefers to be 
always among them. He had a fine record in the war, and 
after our long talks I have learnt to appreciate his measure 
and moderation. He seems to me just the man for the 
present job, that is to say, if no military indiscretion is a 
desideratum. 

I asked him whether the second Bureau belief in the 
intended triplication of the Reichswehr came from isolated 
cases or from something better. D. quite believed that the 
deduction was generally applicable. It was drawn from 
many hundred reports all leading up to the one conclusion. 
D. could not conceive on what grounds the Allies had al- 
lowed the Schupo to exist in its present form. 

He talked a good deal of Hugo Stinnes and his influence. 
Stinnes seemed to him a type of dominator much more 
dangerous than Napoleon. He was a Napoleon of com- 
merce and economics, and bent, or tried to bend, all the 
world to his will. It was a type that the world could not 
permit to endure, and a type likely to be the cause of future 
wars if it did. One man should not be allowed to possess 
such infinite powers for mischief. I said that Cecil Rhodes 
was on the smaller theatre of South Africa a prototype of 
Stinnes. Another might come in America or Russia, per- 
haps even in France. 



BRITISH POLICY 215 

Wednesday, May 18, 1921. No change here or in Upper 
Silesia. Our press calmer and see the harm done. The 
French press biting and very hostile. There are more 
poisonous innuendoes in Henry de Jouvenel's leader in 
to-day's Matin than in any article that I have ever read. 
Is it the old story repeating itself once more? We have no 
enemy in Europe except the dominant Power and France 
is becoming that Power. That seems to me the principle 
unconsciously behind L. G.'s outburst. And we are prac- 
tically disarmed by the short sight and folly of our rulers. 
The French say that they have 100,000 men on the Rhine 
to carry out their policy and on the English side there is 
only a speech! A truly serious moment. Will opinion at 
home gradually form and harden against France? If so, 
we must look to ourselves, reintroduce the Registration 
Act of 1915, amend the Service Acts, and then pass and 
suspend them till we need them, as we did the old Militia 
Ballot. But we must realise that we cannot afford an anti- 
French policy with no army, with Germany in the dust, 
and with the French Army the only modern army in the 
world. A diplomacy unbacked by arms can never succeed. 

Where is our French Alliance now? I hope that this fatal 
course will be arrested. France is not populous enough to 
dominate Europe when it recovers. It is a temporary and 
rather fortuitous superiority of an army. So we should 
keep our heads and mend the broken windows if we can. 
The next week or two may be rather big with fate. The 
Frankfurter publishes to-day the text of NoUet's calls on 
the Germans, with all the claims and the dates on which 
they are to be settled. Will the Germans, and can they, 
fulfil the demands? Went to Wiesbaden and ruminated 
over all the possibilities. Pleasant in the shady gardens of 
the Kurhaus listening to a good band. A very hot day. 

By the way, I asked Degoutte yesterday whether he had 
ready a proclamation to the Ruhr population. No, he said 
this was the business of the Paris Government and he sup- 
posed that they were attending to it. He would declare the 
Stat de siege, as had been done at Frankfort during the brief 



216 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

French occupation there, and later, law would be admin- 
istered by a cour martiale. I asked him about the decision 
of the conseil de guerre in the case of the tirailleur who had 
killed his man. It was not over yet, but D. said that, ex- 
cept in time of war, all capital sentences had to go to the 
President of the Republic. He, Degoutte, would have no 
power to confirm a death sentence. He said that a French 
conseil de guerre was always severe. Noted to-day that 
Domitian and Foch seem to have had the same idea about 
the Mayence bridge-head. Both pushed out to the Taunus 
hills. 

Thursday, May 19, 1921. L. G. sends out by Renter a 
statement that he holds to his views on Upper Silesia and 
that opinion in Italy and America is with him. 

Went to have a talk with General Claudon and Colonel 
Spiral, of the Mayence Military Administration, which is 
under the High Commission of the Rhineland. Claudon 
confirms Degoutte's opinion that the change of behaviour 
of the German administration towards the French was due 
to orders from Berlin. These orders were that the Germans 
were never to meet the French if it could be avoided and 
were not to reply to any invitations sent to them. The 
Rhinelanders, said General C, were good, friendly people, 
hons enjants, and only asked to live in peace and make 
money. Now they had been taken to task about their easy 
manners with the French and had been hauled over the 
coals. He now never saw the German employe who was 
working in his ofiice at 44 Rue Schiller, though formerly 
they met constantly and were on quite friendly terms. It 
was the same everywhere. The German propaganda from 
Berlin had taken firm hold, and was directing all efforts 
towards Germanising opinion and preaching strong pa- 
triotism. All the old forces were still at work, the militar- 
ists, professors, and the clergy worked hand in hand, and 
the Rhinelanders were too easy-going to resist, though they 
were far from Berlin, and owing to the structure of the 
country had easier relations with the West than the East. 
He was not surprised. After all, they were Germans. It 



COMMANDANT PHILIPPI 217 

was like Bavaria and Prussia, who resembled a quarrel- 
some couple who threw the china at each other until a 
third person intervened when they combined against him 
and said, "We are at home, and can do as we please." He 
thought Germany very populous, rich, and strong. He told 
me how at a lunch given by Tirard, Pierpont Noyes, the 
American, had taken up a rose, which was withered, from 
the table decorations and had said that it resembled Ger- 
many, being faded and fallen. " Yes," interrupted a French- 
man present, "/a rose est fanee mats le rosier est fort." 

In the afternoon went to see Commandant Philippi at 
the German Customs Office on the quay. A capable man, 
in uniform, a black beard, quick and sure of himself, about 
forty-five, a man to bear in mind. He is in administrative 
charge of the Mayence customs line and his rule extends 
to Worms. He has only a very small staff, but all the rail- 
ways, the rivers, and the roads are held by small posts of 
six soldiers under one of his customs officers, and he thinks 
that he stops everything and that little can pass. He is 
organising a second line in rear to make sure. The whole 
line of the Rhine customs only takes three chief inspectors, 
fifteen inspectors, and about one hundred and twenty cus- 
toms house officials to control the German customs officials 
who remain at their posts. He thinks that the takings on 
the whole of the new line under the tariff instituted by 
Rules 81 and 82 of the T.A.H.C. may amount to one hun- 
dred million francs a month, ^ and so over a milliard francs 
a year. P. says that it will take another month to fix the 
whole thing up definitely and he rather hinted at an in- 
crease of the duty which, for imports from Germany, is on 
the basis of only twenty-five per cent of the German cus- 
toms totals, which are low, and I should say, approximate 
to a ten per cent ad valorem duty. An immense number of 
things under the existing German customs are allowed in 
free, i.e., food and coal and much more. On some of these 
free imports there is now imposed a registration fee of one 
mark a ton. "If you increase the tariff will the trade fall in 

* Compare entry for May 22. 



218 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

volume?" I asked. No, he thought it would not. The new 
customs people had been assembled in Mainz, but the 
duties were not set going till April and in the interval much 
trade had passed to escape the duties. There was a large 
trade, and some one hundred wagons of coal came in daily 
to Mayence. The administrative cost of the new scheme 
was slight. The Germans had thought that we could not 
find the personnel to run the customs, but they had been 
wrong, and perhaps they did not know that France had 
about five times the number of the Rhine customs ofiicials 
ready to act in the Ruhr when it was occupied. " What will 
the Ruhr customs bring in on the same tariff?" I asked. 
"About five or six times as much as the Rhine customs 
now," he replied. Actually, payments are made in paper 
marks. But it makes the French mouth water, and P. said 
that France could not exist with the present Budget and 
something had to be done. He was sure that the Germans 
could and would pay. They levied much lower customs 
duties than the French did. The tax of ten per cent which 
the Germans imposed as a tax on the wages of workmen 
was merely to enrage these people against the French. P. 
did not believe that the German officials paid an equivalent 
tax on their salaries.^ He felt sure that the Germans in the 
Ruhr would keep quiet. He had studied them. Yes they 
would attack France with passion when the time came, 
but meanwhile they placed trade first and patriotism 
second. They had large paunches and about ten metres 
longer guts than a Frenchman and had to satisfy the cor- 
responding appetites. P. did not agree with me that the 
blockade was a more effective weapon to use than occupa- 
tion. We had a good chat over the political position. I 
enjoy talking with a man who opposes one's views. It is a 
perfect tonic. 

Walked back along the river. Examined some of the 
Rhine barges. One belonging to Hugo Stinnes had come 
from Ruhrort with coal. I had a talk to the bargee or com- 
modore of the flotilla of six barges of which he was in 

^ Tills is denied. See later. 



A LUCKY BARGEE 219 

charge. A fine ship built in Holland and taking eight hun- 
dred tons of coal normally, but with the Rhine at its pres- 
ent low water it can only carry three hundred. He had his 
wife on board; very good quarters astern with kitchen, 
bedroom, and what he called the best room — a barge 
drawing-room, I imagine. All spotlessly clean: flowers in 
the drawing-room window! He has one or two "sailors" 
or other bargees on board. The other flotilla barges have 
two or three other bargees. The smaller barges had smaller 
living quarters. No women, I suppose? I asked. Oh! yes, 
there was one to each barge! There are chicken-houses 
flush with the deck as part of the barge. He had nine hens. 
A corresponding partition was open on his port quarter. 
I did not ask what it contained. Rabbits, perhaps. If so 
he was all self-contained. There was sand for his chickens 
and a wire netting prevented them from getting out when 
their hatch was off. What a placid life! No letters, no 
telephone messages, no politics, no worries, and no bills! 
The man ought to live for ever! He is the typical "lucky 
bargee." 

French sailors in charge of a couple of Rhine gunboats. 
There were two small guns mounted forward, no shields. 
The quays are solid, of great length, with several lines of 
rail alongside. The various firms have their warehouses 
alongside the quays. A very substantial and well-organ- 
ised river port. 

Friday, May 20, 1921. The debate in Paris was carried 
on yesterday by the interpellators. Briand has not spoken 
yet. The debate continues. Went to see the cathedral 
again. Have tried to like it for a week because it is old, but 
I can't because it is a patch-work. It may interest the 
historian of architecture, but how far are we from the del- 
icate unity of Salisbury and the Gothic glory of Cologne! 
I hate Romanesque and hate equally, or more, the flam- 
boyant. To patch them with Gothic is to ruin all three. 
The interior is worthy, but the tombstones and altar pieces 
are depressing if varied. We get renaissance, transition, 
early-Gothic, baroque — of course, because the German is 



220 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

baroque — late-Gothic, rococo, wood and stone, odious 
mural paintings, and every sort of other abomination. 

Walked on to look again at the monument of the so- 
called Gutenberg, the soi-disant inventor of printing. A 
statue erected to a highly reprehensible person who may 
have been named Gansfleisch and may have lived four 
hundred years before the statue was put up. Don't be- 
lieve in him and less in his statue. Nobody knows who 
invented printing nor ever will know. If we knew we should 
posthumously burn him at the stake. He has been respon- 
sible for all the heresies, illusions, troubles, and wars of five 
centuries. He still perpetuates enmities by permitting 
every hasty word of some over-wrought politician to be 
placed next day before all the people outraged by it, and 
far from aiding or promoting civilisation he has debased it. 
He has allowed every village idiot who pretends that he 
possesses the truth to mislead others, whereas the defini- 
tive truth is already a dead truth and written history a 
cemetery. Life is thought, movement, action. The trou- 
badour made it pretty and the printer made it ugly. The 
only true history is that little scrap of our own time which 
we can tell because we see it and feel it and know it. It dies 
with us, giving birth to a new history and new truths told 
by our successors to their contemporaries and lasting only 
their time. 

I prefer the crowded market-place of Mainz to the cathe- 
dral and the imaginary Gutenberg. Here is life, truth and 
movement. The French are right. The Rhinelanders are 
hons enfants. There is simply nothing of the Prussian here. 
No stiff formalism, no bluster nor swagger, but the easy 
ways of would-be happy dwellers in their fruitful valleys. 
But what does it all amount to? These people count no 
more than sparrows. The crowds will die and pass away as 
endless other crowds have passed away. Vanitas vanitatum! 

Saturday, May 21, 1921. The Paris debate adjourned 
till Tuesday. Briand has not yet spoken. L. G.'s second 
statement of the 18th on Silesia has aroused a fresh flood 
of opprobrium in France and has made matters worse. Saw 



OUR NEW DOUANE AT WORK 221 

Generals Degoutte and Michel in the morning. No news and 
D. says that I can safely go to Coblenz, as he does not 
anticipate any change, though he admits that he can never 
say for certain. A good offer to go in a French boat Monday 
with the Paris Municipal Council who are joy-riding here, 
but on the whole think I will stick to the plan already made 
with Robertson, as the Frenchmen start very early and 
from Bingen. 

In the afternoon went to study the working of the new 
Rhineland douane at Mayence passenger and goods sta- 
tions. A sharp French inspector, second string to Philippi, 
handed me over to an entertaining brigadier of the douanes, 
a wag and a character, who showed me round and ex- 
plained everything. He had been at Cannes when the war 
broke out, rejoined as a volunteer though over age, served 
with the Alpins, and was at last hauled back to the customs 
service because the volunteering of nearly one thousand 
of its skilled hands had quite disorganised it. 

At the Passenger Baggage OflSce the thing worked 
simply. The travellers from Germany brought up their 
goods which were examined and taxed at the rate of twenty- 
five per cent of the customs duty in the German law of 1906. 
A German clerk had the text of the German tariff before him, 
for all goods, and in each case simply divided it by four. 
He was paid by the owner of the goods, and got a receipt 
of which a duplicate with the same number was retained. 
For instance a parcel of textiles about 3'x2' was charged 
thirty-five paper marks duty; a crate and a dozen larger 
specimens of aluminium watering-cans was charged fourteen 
marks: books were allowed in free, and so on. The briga- 
dier kept a book to show the number of wagons in and out 
each day and duties charged. They were not much for these 
small parcels, about three hundred francs a day. The Ger- 
mans hated paying the duty between unoccupied and occu- 
pied Germany and with diflBculty controlled their wrath, 
which fact tickled the caustic brigadier enormously. All 
the personnel is German except the brigadier, who is alert 
and comes down where he likes, at any moment, to observe. 



222 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

He does not know a word of German, but carries a sort of 
tiny pocket dictionary, smaller than a match-box, which he 
is very keen on using. 

We went on to the goods warehouses which were pretty 
full of things from Germany. About three warehouses con- 
tained goods which escaped tax under the German tariff. 
The rest were taxable. A large quantity of household fur- 
niture. The furniture of a bedroom, which cost about four 
thousand paper marks to make, paid one hundred marks 
tax, and so on. The German duties are all low, and reduc- 
ing them to twenty-five per cent makes them harmless. 
A vast quantity of goods escapes all tax. It is amusing 
that the tariff was aimed at France and was made specially 
high for goods in which France competed with Germany. 
So now the compliment is returned by using the German 
tariff against German goods. I suppose that the total Ger- 
man customs staff at Mayence is about forty. On the 
French side only my little brigadier, but my friend the in- 
spector came on the scene twice. 

I had the goods taxes added up for six days. They came 
to 172,027 paper marks, or about 30,000 a day for goods 
and baggage at Mayence station alone, and this does not 
include coal and iron and steel which goes elsewhere, the 
port, I think, to be examined. Does the German personnel 
work squarely .f* It seems so, because any lapse from duty 
or fraud means a conseil de guerre, and then fines, imprison- 
ment, and deportation if necessary. The Germans work, 
but not actively. They work not mainly from fear, but 
from the national sense of discipline, I think. It is the 
order! The inspector agreed that by making a new tariff 
and suspending the free list we could quadruple the income 
from the customs without arresting trade. We could, of 
course, double it by charging fifty per cent of what the 
Germans charge instead of our present twenty-five per 
cent. This new customs duty has an undoubtedly good 
effect in one way: it makes the Germans sensible of their 
real position. But the Germans in unoccupied Germany do 
not feel it. Nothing but blockade or an occupation can 



THE GERMAN STATE SERVICES 223 

bring it home to them. The brigadier draws double pay 
and gets 1020 francs a month. All the German State serv- 
ices here and elsewhere are over-staffed to an absurd 
extent. The former officers and N.C.O.'s swarm in them. 
One could restaff a national army from these people with- 
out hurting the various administrations. The result is that 
the railways do not pay, but many defend the system be- 
cause otherwise the men would be on the streets. The 
longer peace lasts the more will all these men be weaned 
from militarism and become absorbed in their new trades. 
It is inevitable. Another good reason why the control 
should be maintained for some years to come. As to where 
all the money goes I must ask at Coblenz. It seems at 
present to be only equal to three thousand pounds a month 
for Mayence station at the present rate of exchange, to-day 
about 237 paper marks to the pound sterling. 

Returning, was with two Algerian tirailleurs in the 
standing part of the tram. They were unpleasant-looking 
fellows and not civil. They pushed rather rudely against 
a better-class German as they got down. He brushed his 
jacket angrily where they had touched him and gave a look 
after them which for concentrated bitterness and hate was 
a model of expression. 

Talked with Lieutenant de la Riviere, 14th Chasseurs, 
and an English lady after dinner. 

Sunday, May 22, 1921. Visited the Museum. A large 
collection of Roman antiquities, chiefly household objects, 
tombstones, bas-reliefs, sculptures, etc. A poor picture 
gallery of which a Ruysdael, a Palamedes, and some other 
Dutch works are the best of a second-rate collection. 

Note that on May 8, before the Germans accepted the 
ultimatum, the mark was 9,Q5 to the pound and the franc 
49. On May 20 the mark was 237 to the pound and the 
franc 45, London quotations. Very little change, and both 
currencies have improved slightly. I begin to believe that 
European exchanges will never reach their old parities and 
that we had better discard the old standards as quite mis- 
leading. I live cheaper here in Germany than in Austria. 



224 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

The mark when at its lowest had four times its purchasing 
power here that it should have had at its international 
value, and it still has more. Is not the true parity the pur- 
chasing power? I think so. Why do not our financial 
pundits give us their figure every week or month? The 
1914 parity means nothing at all, not even the dollar or the 
pound when gold is only half its 1914 value — less than 
half, about fortj'^ per cent. 

If we can only have peace, if nations stop inflation, work 
and produce, break down the economic boundaries set up 
by the Versailles frontiers and introduce free trade in place 
of them, things will improve, provided that Governments 
limit their normal expenditures to their normal income. 
If not, then not. 

Coblenz, Monday, May 22, 1921. Travelled by river to 
Coblenz. Put up with Mr. Arnold Robertson, British High 
Commissioner. His wife returns in June. He has a de- 
lightful little son of three and a half, Donald, whom he 
worships. Years since I was in a Rhine steamer. As good 
as ever and decent cooking. A lovely day. The general 
aspect of the river scenery has not much changed — al- 
though there are naturally more dwellings — as the fac- 
tories have, as a rule, been kept out of prominence. Many 
more vineyards, especially on the right bank. Quite 
Charlemagne's idea when he brought the vines to Rudes- 
heim. The scenery between Bingen and Loreley particu- 
larly attractive. No English or Americans on board. Many 
towed barges met, but few steamers. The trains of coal 
wagons on both banks seemed very numerous. River low, 
but has only fallen one metre more than the normal. This, 
however, makes a difference in river navigation. We oc- 
casionally passed through very broken water. The current 
is at least seven to eight miles an hour and our friends at 
Budapest will have to alter their views on this matter. The 
skipper put it down at eighteen kilometres an hour, but 
this is an exaggeration. I was amused by the coquetry of 
the barge-masters — each tries to make his barge most 
spick and span. The men not steering were all washing the 



MR. ARNOLD ROBERTSON 225 

boats or painting or tarring them. The Dutch boats were 
on the whole the smartest. Talked to Robertson and 
walked and motored with him. In the evening dined with 
him and about a dozen men, all members of his staff, ex- 
cept Colonel Stone, the United States member of the High 
Commission. The latter sat next me and spoke exceedingly 
well on the subject of America's desire to help in allaying 
Europe's troubles and also about our Army in the War. 
He works hand in glove with Robertson aad the two are 
cordially in agreement on practically all subjects. 

I had a long talk at dinner with Captain E. R. Trough- 
ton in charge of the New Customs and with Captain W. H. 
Georgi who knows more of the Ruhr than most people. 
Major F. J. Quarry, Intelligence OflSeer, and for fourteen 
years a professional pianist in Germany, gave us some ex- 
quisite music on a Bluthner'grand after dinner. These mili- 
tary titles mean nothing much. Only Ryan is a Regular. 
Talked to some others of the staff later. 

R. has an excellent staff. Some of them were on Fergus- 
son's staff at Cologne, and a more competent lot of fellows 
at their special jobs it would be hard to find. This staff 
could give the F.O. an admirable and reasoned opinion 
on almost every subject connected with Germany and the 
occupied territory, but I imagine that London has little no- 
tion of the competence of this organisation which is rarely 
consulted. As everywhere else I found our people critical 
of the French. The High Commission of Tirard (Presi- 
dent), Robertson, Rolin Jaequemyns the Belgian, and 
Stone get on very well together, but Tirard's staff are 
often diflBcult. Tirard spends part of his time in Paris 
and is largely occupied with politics. R. J. is a good sound 
lawyer with moderate views. Robertson is broad and strong 
and a stickler for fairness and impartiality. Troughton 
practically runs the customs for him on a small Commission 
of three to which R. has refused to allow a President to be 
named. There is also a permit Commission at Ems. The 
wide experience of Ryan, Troughton, and Georgi in their 
departments is of great value to R. The latter now allows 



226 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

that the customs may bring in four to five millions a year 
and that a strike may not take place in the Ruhr if it is 
occupied, but he is dead against the occupation of that 
region and holds to his previous view that if the R.H.C. 
is implicated in it he should have another one hundred and 
twenty men to keep him accurately informed of what is go- 
ing on there. He has still no policy laid down for him in the 
Rhineland. He does not pretend that the customs tariff is 
perfect. He was ordered to prepare it at the shortest notice, 
whereas a system of this sort should take six months to 
prepare. He had been against it, but had said it could be 
imposed if desired, and it had been imposed, but many 
blemishes remained. He was now for ending the system, as 
the Germans had surrendered. 

Troughton gave me the English texts of the various 
ordinances of the R.H.C. which I wanted. I had a long 
talk with him at dinner. He thinks the customs now bring 
in ninety million paper marks a month and says that the 
French exaggerate the probable profits in order to make a 
case for the retention of the [customs and their extension to 
the Ruhr. I find him a most modest man of calm mind 
and considered judgement. He does not venture an opinion 
without being sure of his facts. He has worked before the 
war in various metallurgic and other industries connected 
with the Ruhr which he knows well and can translate the 
most intricate technical German. 

After dinner had a long talk with Georgi. He is fiery, 
eloquent, enthusiastic, and a little extravagant, but he 
knows the Ruhr perfectly and is a great asset to R. He 
thinks that the Treaty of Versailles has so disturbed the 
economic balance of France and Germany that France had 
necessarily to endeavour to get control over German re- 
sources or sacrifice her own. Germany, he says, had built 
up the largest iron and steel industry in Europe based on 
coal and especially coke from the Ruhr coalfields, and 
on iron ore from Luxembourg and Lorraine which are the 
most extensive in Europe and yield ore called minette. 
This is oohthic hematite containing thirty to thirty-five 



RUHR STATISTICS 227 

per cent of iron mixed with a gangue of limestone which 
renders the ore easy to smelt. Minette ore produces pig 
iron with a high percentage, two per cent, of phosphorous, 
which is converted into steel by the basic or Thomas proc- 
ess, the slag obtained being a valuable fertiliser which we 
call basic slag. Some sixty-five per cent of the pig iron pro- 
duced in Germany was smelted from minette of which 
thirty-two million tons came to the extent of two-thirds 
from then German Lorraine. Of these thirty-two million 
tons, twenty-one millions were smelted in the Ruhr and 
Saar and eleven millions in German Lorraine. 

But geographically Lorraine deposits are far from 
coalfields possessing coking coal. The Saar is close at 
hand, but produces httle coke — 1,700,000 tons a year 
only — and now much less. Germany did not encourage 
the iron and steel industry to concentrate in Lorraine, as 
it was too exposed. It was for this reason that they did not 
canalise the Saar and Moselle to give continuous river 
transp>ort from the Ruhr to the minette fields. 

After the war the German iron and steel industries in 
Westphalia were faced by a serious crisis owing to the loss 
of the minette ore. They were driven to use other native 
ores and to call for more Swedish ores, and took other steps 
to make themselves independent. They amassed credits 
abroad and acquired interest in foreign ore-producing com- 
panies, particularly in Sweden and Spain. As Germany's 
iron ore deposits are estimated to contain two thousand 
million tons of ore, her position is better than ours, and the 
now French minette is threatened with death. 

France found herself after the war with about sixty 
million tons of minette yearly in theory, but only twelve 
millions were produced in 1919. To produce this quantity 
she needed twenty million tons of coke a year, and the bulk 
of it can only be produced in Germany. The Germans are 
still sending coke, but not a fraction of what France wants, 
and Germany is the only possible customer for her ore 
except Belgium which is also dependent on the Ruhr for 
coke. The Treaty imposed certain .deliveries of coal to 



228 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

France, but for ten years only. She sees this now and has 
to restore her position or find the minette a drug in the 
market. She wishes to become the first steel producer in 
Europe and can do so only at Germany's expense. It is in 
fact of vital importance for France to take the Ruhr basin 
and a bitter economic war is really raging now. The French 
policy is not one to cripple Germany, but to aid France, 
and Georgi thinks that the French iron-masters have con- 
verted the French Government to their views and hold 
that at least Germany's coal production must be inter- 
nationalised in the interest of France and her friends, i.e., 
the Belgians, whose interests in this matter accord with 
those of France. Belgium used to take twenty-five per 
cent of the Briey ore, or five million tons a year, but is 
taking very little now as railway frieghts are so high. 
Belgium has also little coking coal. 

In 1913 the Ruhr produced 114| million tons of coal. 
The proved coalfields in Westphalia and on the Lower 
Rhine cover 2300 square miles. The output dropped to 
71 million tons in 1919 owing to the usual causes. It is now 
300,000 tons a day, or about 100 millions a year. The 
coal is of the highest grade consisting of gas coal equal to 
that of Durham, long-flame coal for steel-making and 
household use, bituminous or coking coal used also as 
steam coal and making an excellent coke for blast furnace 
use, and lastly semi-anthracite coal. The coke production 
is now 1,900,000 tons a month — 2| million tons of coal 
coked. Average cost of production of Ruhr coal is 210 
paper marks a ton or 17 shillings. The net selling price is 
fixed by the German Government at 227 marks a ton for 
unscreened and unwashed coal. It pays to the German 
Government an ad valorem tax of twenty per cent. 

Georgi knows much about the iron and steel industry 
in the Ruhr and the statistics of it. Two-thirds of the 
whole German iron and steel comes from the Ruhr. The 
German output has fallen since the war to 550,000 tons a 
month of which 365,000 from the Ruhr. It is there also 
converted into finished goods such as rails, girders, and 



RUHR STATISTICS 229 

machinery. Over 25,000 trucks of fifteen tons capacity 
are loaded daily. The Ruhr created the industrial wealth 
of South Germany and France could control it by occupy- 
ing the Ruhr. The Ruhr is Germany from an industrial 
point of view and is also Germany's arsenal. 

Meanwhile in Lorraine only forty per cent of the blast 
furnaces are in operation, but even then iron-masters can- 
not get rid of their pig iron. Georgi thinks that if the 
French occupy the Ruhr, the balance of power of Europe 
would be upset to our detriment, but he does not prove 
this to my satisfaction. But that they w^ould control the 
industry of Germany seems certain. He says that there 
are 17,000 German inspectors employed in the mines 
and quite as many more in the various iron and steel 
works, etc. 

The Ruhr coal output at present is allotted : Two million 
tons a month to reparation; 900,000 tons a month to 
colliery consumption and workmen's coal; 600,000 tons 
a month to the occupied Rhineland; 800,000 to South 
Germany; 500,000 to Germany west of the Elbe and 
Berhn; and 2,500,000 tons a month are consumed in 
the Ruhr itself. Silesia generally supplies Germany east 
of the Elbe with coal. The German production of brown 
coal is mainly in the Cologne region. It is 2,800,000 tons 
a month. Also in Central Germany at Halle, 7,000,000 
tons a month. It is converted often into briquettes for 
domestic use. 

Georgi thinks that it is desired to place a flat-rate tax of 
forty gold marks per ton on all coal produced in Germany 
when France occupies the Ruhr. I have never heard of a 
bigger figure than twenty marks. It is quite certain that 
the forty marks tax would make German coal higher in 
price than American coal which can be placed at German 
ports at $8.50 per ton. 

Tuesday, May 23, 1921. A talk in the morning with 
Robertson. We are both exceedingly vexed at a report 
that our four remaining weak battalions are to go to Upper 
Silesia, that Morland is to have French troops under him. 



230 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

that we are to have no force left in the Cologne area where 
there may be Ij millions of Germans. Moreover, R. is 
left to read this news in the German papers ! I cannot con- 
ceive any policy more silly. All our administrative and 
customs staff left without a man to guard them, and R.'s 
staff as well as Morland's horribly lowered in prestige and 
dignity. Allen and his Americans are 17,000 here, good 
solid regular troops and very fine fellows. As for sending 
four weak battalions to Upper Silesia where the Poles, 
who detest us after L. G.'s campaign, are in practical con- 
trol of the country, it is a most light-hearted proceed- 
ing. Our Government seem to think that the occupied 
territory is France and that the Poles will not resent our 
appearance. 

Went to the office and talked over matters with the 
staff. Lunched with M. Tirard, President of the High 
Commission, and some of his staff and officers later. 
Tirard subjected me while we were alone before lunch to 
a public-meeting harangue on elementary facts about the 
position here. He seemed to me a nice fellow with good in- 
tentions. Spent the afternoon ruminating over what I 
have learned here. It seems to me that this is all a bigger 
economic problem than any of us have realised, and that 
Westphalia, Saar, Lorraine, and Upper Silesia are all parts 
of one great problem. I should not wonder if Schneider 
of Creusot and Hugo Stinnes got together one day and 
amalgamated all their interests. Said so to Troughton, 
who replied, "Perhaps they have!" 

Wednesday, May 24, 1921. Empire day, and here we 
are with our Union Jack on a pole outside this house and 
soon not a soldier to look after it! Over a million Germans 
round us — loving us so dearly! — a huge territory for 
which we are responsible filled as at Solingen with large 
working populations with many Communist groups which 
may give trouble at any moment. Only our Kreis officers 
to keep them in order, and then there is our customs line, 
of serious length and a handful of customs officers and no 
British guard. Strange people we are, but I dare say that 



TALK WITH M. ROLIN JAEQUEMYNS 231 

nothing will happen because our young Kreis officers have 
the habits of command and the Germans the instincts of 
obedience. It is really comical to think of the Germans 
also in charge of all the railways behind us! An occupa- 
tion without occupiers! However, here at Coblenz, though 
Robertson may rage at the humiliation of it all, there is 
Allen and his 17,000 Americans, and a very large Stars 
and Stripes waves over Ehrenbreitstein ! 

Went to have a talk with M. Rolin Jaequemyns whom 
I knew at the Hague Conference and at Brussels twenty 
years ago. A very wise, capable, and agreeable lawyer 
who is a great favourite with the English and Americans. 
We had a good talk. He went through the whole situation 
admitting that neither he nor his Government desired to 
occupy the Ruhr militarily, but concluding that a civil 
occupation with the threat of military action in reserve 
might meet the case. He thought that it was impracti- 
cable to man all the Ruhr industries as Loucheur had 
suggested, and that it would be enough to have supervi- 
sion at all the mines and to charge some figure like twenty 
francs a ton on all coal, with any necessary variation ac- 
cording to grades of coal, as a tax. This would be paid at 
the pit mouth. It would help English and Belgian coal, 
and the German owners could be left to distribute the 
burden of the tax among the consumers of the coal and its 
products. Not a bad plan, as it is simple and effective and 
leads to no interference with German workmen. He is all 
for doing it by agreement with the Germans, and says that 
things cannot be settled except by agreements. He spoke 
highly of Degoutte. We talked over old times. He was 
most sarcastic about the League of Nations which he said 
had become a centre of intrigues, and thought, as I did, 
that we had been on sounder lines at The Hague in 1899. 
He asked me to come again to Coblenz to talk at greater 
length with him. 

Went on to the U.S. Headquarters to talk with General 
Allen whose opinion carries so much weight. A tall, 
straight man, with straight views and a strong face: a very 



232 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

worthy representative of the United States. He was a 
trifle sarcastic about the first speech of the new U.S. Am- 
bassador in London, Colonel Harvey, and suggested that 
diplomatists were usually expected to be diplomatic. All 
Harvey should have done would have been to point out 
the position taken up by the Harding Administration at 
home and to have left it at that. 

He tells me that he and Robertson never discuss 
matters in advance, but are in nineteen out of twenty 
cases in agreement. He thinks that if a U.S. Brigade had 
gone to Upper Silesia the Poles would never have risen. 
He would have taken strong measures with Korfanty and 
have told him that if he wanted to make trouble he could 
go somewhere else to make it. He had given the same 
advice to German agitators who threatened to vex him in 
his area and they had stayed away from Coblenz in conse- 
quence. He did not know what America wanted with a 
strong division in Central Europe and wondered how long 
they would stay. Service here was very popular; every 
man had his girl. I congratulated him on the appearance 
of his troops. Less on that of the girls. 

He was not sure how far France would be able to go. 
The time might come when her friends would not follow 
her, and he is apparently not keen about the Ruhr and 
asked when France would leave it if she went there. I 
thought not for years until the old veterans and officers 
of the Imperial Regime had pot-bellies and were beyond 
the fighting age. A. did not seem to approve of this, though 
he said that he felt for France and was all for helping her 
to get her just rights. But I do not think that he will 
approve of any exaction or excessive claims. He takes up 
a broad, sympathetic, but just view, and it is certainly in 
the interest of France to mSnager Allen, as he is a good 
friend and might become a bad enemy if any hanky-panky 
were played. I told him that the sight of the first Ameri- 
can sentry on the Rhine had the same effect upon me as 
that of the first American Marine sentry at Chaumont in 
1917. I was glad that they were still here ^and in good 



GENERAL ALLEN'S OPINIONS 233 

strength, for so long as they stayed they stood for what 
was right and just, and that was all we wanted. He called 
Germany France's bugaboo, and criticised the view that, 
because the German houses and factories were all standing 
Germany was not down. She was down, and had a great 
work to recover her own position, let alone to satisfy re- 
paration claims. It was true that she had not much 
foreign debt, but she still had a great effort to make. 
A. thought it absurd to suppose that America was not in- 
terested in the recovery of one of her best customers, and 
also England's. This had to be borne in mind. He gave 
me not obscurely to understand that in case France over- 
stepped all limits, America would regretfully have to take 
certain disagreeable steps. Like Jaequemyns he extolled 
Degoutte and thought he showed great tact and good 
sense as well as being a fine soldier. He also spoke of the 
excellent effect of the Americans meeting our soldiers 
whom they had never seen before. They paid each other 
visits. Our men came here to box, etc., and there was a 
good feeling. 

General Allen asked me to come up the Rhine to Lore- 
ley with him this afternoon. Robertson and his staff were 
going. But I wished to get to Mainz to-night, so had re- 
gretfully to refuse and left by the 2.30 express boat for my 
destination. I have seen a great deal of my host. He is a 
delightful and very live man, with much strength and good 
judgement, while he has also a very charming and agreeable 
character. I am only afraid that his frank criticisms may 
injure him with the F.O. Nobody at that institution 
seems to take any interest in the High Commission. No 
one acts as father, mother, and family solicitor and 
watches over its interests. To take away practically the 
whole garrison from British-occupied Germany and not 
to tell the man responsible for it, is an outrage. Robertson 
is on the best of terms with all his colleagues and they all 
seem a happy family even if France's Allies criticise her a 
bit, and do not always follow her. But France's ways are 
not our ways or American ways, and even the Belgians 



234 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

resent French action at times, though they feel themselves 
to be in the French boat. 

Robertson told me just before I left that some Reich- 
stag Deputies and the Labour leaders in the Cologne area 
had come to Piggott and had offered to give him every 
possible assurance of good behaviour if he would prevent 
the relief of our British troops by the French ! Reached 
Mainz about 10.30 p.m. 

Thursday, May ^5, 1921. Wrote letters and then read 
carefully the full text of Briand's long speech which took 
two and one half hours to deliver on Tuesday. His figures 
of the plebiscite in the Upper Silesian industrial triangle 
are different from those of our Staff at Oppeln directly after 
the election and quoted in my diary at the time. Briand 
gives a total of 343,485 Polish and 289,980 German votes 
in this area, and alters what we took to be a German ma- 
jority of 50,000 into about an equivalent Polish majority. 
I must write to Percival or Bourdillon to explain the dis- 
crepancy,^ but, after all, the term "industrial area" is 
vague and the French may have included in it some coun- 
try areas to help matters out. Certainly there was no anti- 
Polish sentiment among us when we added up the figures 
at Oppeln, and we were, if anything, disappointed at what 
we took to be a Polish minority. 

Briand made it clear that if France had gone into the 
Ruhr when the Germans surrendered, she would have 
stood alone. But he said that if the question of security 
came up, France could not hesitate. He was interesting 
when he declared that in view of the enchevetrement of 
international interests in the conditions of the world's life, 
no isolation was possible for great nations. Has he realised 
that his Allies will not follow him? Have they all warned 
him.? He may yet be forced into the Ruhr by German 
unwillingness or inability to fulfil some condition of the 
ultimatum, but I think it would be against his judgement, 
for he described the Ruhr as a *'gage inerte." 

* Later it appeared that M. Briand had lumped all the coal area together and 
had included in the triangle the Rybuik and Pless area which is not yet opened 
up. It is a theory which can be argued, but the facts should be stated. 



M. BRIAND'S GREAT SPEECH 235 

Wrote to Bourdillon at Oppeln asking him to explain 
Briand's figures. 

Sunday, May 29, 1921. Busy these last days writing 
some longish articles on the Rhineland Commission, the 
new customs line, and the general question of the coal- 
fields of Europe, which sounds dull, but is fascinating. 
All my other articles have now been published and Burn- 
ham writes a very encouraging letter about them with very 
interesting accounts of the political situation in London 
and Paris, the Poles, and our troubles with the French. 
According to to-day's French papers our first battalion 
was received at Oppeln with acclamations — by the 
Bodies! Good Lord! Briand got a good majority when 
the Chambers voted at the end of the long foreign debate. 
I have never known him to speak better or to be better- 
informed and more precise. He was all solid argument and 
reasoned statement. A most convincing speech and not a 
word of heat nor mention of L. G.'s speech. 

Monday, May 30, 1921. Saw General Degoutte in the 
morning; all quiet on the Rhine and he is of his former 
opinion that nothing will happen here now. I told him the 
nice things that Coblenz was saying about his tact and 
courtesy and moderation. We discussed the Anglo-French 
differences. D. thinks that things are settling down in 
Upper Silesia, but we both think that the re-establishment 
of order, which is the business of the Allies under the 
Treaty, must precede decisions, as otherwise they will not 
be carried out. We both want an English and an Italian 
division at war strength to complete Le Rond's force. D. 
suggests that France should not be held responsible for the 
anti-English speeches in the Chambers and the abuse of 
the Paris press. He thinks that the speech of Briand and 
his majority should be a satisfaction to England, and re- 
marks how many concessions France has also made to 
English opinion. We agree in praising Briand's states- 
manship. Told him that I thought of moving on as I had 
exhausted the interests here and thought of going to Berlin 
or visiting Alsace and Lorraine. He told me that General 



236 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

Berthelot was at Metz and Humbert at Strasbourg. There 
was a civil commissaire at Metz. Nancy was the best 
place to study the Lorraine industries. D. told me that 
there was another division coming here because the 1919 
Class was quieter here than in the interior. Punishments 
here had not gone up since the 1919 Class had come in to 
the Rhine. 

I must register the fact that, though I like the Algerians 
and the Moors as troops, I find myself resenting their 
authority over the white population here almost as much 
as the inhabitants do. Racial prejudice, I suppose. The 
Americans feel the same. I have never seen a French sol- 
dier talking to or walking with one of the North African 
soldiers. They go about quite apart. 

Had a talk in the afternoon with Herr Mayer, the Di- 
rector of the Disconto-Gesellschaft Bank here, on the 
economical situation of Germany. He was immensely 
interested to hear of the broad results of the new customs 
taxes and evidently knew nothing whatever on the subject, 
but he thought, after all, that the profits to us did not 
amount to much, and that the permit difficulties were 
really killing trade. The clients all told him that this had 
stopped all business, but this is evidently not quite the 
case. Respecting the future he was pessimistic. He thought 
that Germany could pay her way, but did not see how the 
reparations could be paid unless Germany was entirely 
free to trade, as it was only in work that she could find a 
hope of paying. We discussed relative prices of goods here 
and in England, and he admitted that a tax of twenty-six 
per cent on imports from Germany into England would 
not stop German trade. I do not think it will either, for 
they can undersell us so severely. He admitted that, in 
regard to the 240 marks to a pound sterling, one could buy 
here three times as much for 240 marks as one could in 
England for the pound. But he did not agree with the 
English and French complaints that Germans were under- 
taxed, for it was not fair to say that we paid in taxes so 
many pounds and the Germans so much less. It was quite 



LEVIES, TAXES, AND WAGES 237 

a high rate of pay for his employes in the bank to get 11,000 
marks a year, but it was only £50, and the corresponding 
employes in England had £150 at least. Therefore if these 
grades were taxed, say, £25 in Germany, they would be 
taxed more in proportion to their income than the English 
employe if he were taxed £50. 

All wage-earners had the ten per cent tax deducted from 
their wages and never saw it. All officials and State em- 
ployes were in the same boat. He did not admit that any 
escaped, for evasion of taxes was not a German habit. As 
for the capital levy of 1919, it had been 11,000 marks on a 
capital of 100,000 marks and both reckoned in paper. An 
income of 100,000 marks was now taxed 45,000 marks to 
the State and also had to bear some 15,000 marks rates and 
taxes to the town in Mainz. The capital levy was 5000 
marks for the first 50,000 marks, and 6000 for the second. 
He thought that the income tax, i.e., 60,000 marks on an 
income of 100,000, was as high as the State could go, for if 
a man threw all his capital and brains and energy into 
making another 100,000 marks of income, with all the risks 
attaching to it, and then found he had less than forty per 
cent of it left to spend, he would prefer not to risk his cap- 
ital and to slave for so little profit. He also told me that 
people were allowed to pay their taxes in War Loan scrip 
which meant the repayment of much of the war debt. He 
could not understand why England destroyed her old 
notes. Germany kept hers in reserve when they came 
back. He admitted that all the State departments were 
overmanned, but this was better than to have these people 
in the street. This was why railways, posts, etc., were a loss 
instead of a profit and because the charges to the public 
were so low. Also there was still unemployment pay of 
which he disapproved. But on June 1 all railway fares 
would be doubled and unemployment pay was being stead- 
ily curtailed, so Germany was coming back to the straight 
path on State finance. The best business done was in coal. 
Iron was not doing well now. There were many obstacles 
to German trade. The eight-hour day was the rule every- 



238 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

where, but was often exceeded and the cost of it met in 
some way other than regular pay. By law only one hour 
extra a day for four days in the week was allowed. The 
clerks at the bank worked from 8 a.m. to 12.30 and then 
from 2.30 to 6: on Saturday from 8 to 2 without a break 
except half an hour for lunch. These hours suited a town 
like Mainz best, but did not suit great towns like Berlin 
and were not copied there. I noticed that to-day, though a 
Saturday, there were many clerks still at work when I left 
at 6 P.M. Read a book of Rhine legends by Ruland. 

I see that my war diary figures in the Annual Register for 
1920. L. G. and I are the only people mentioned by name 
in the Times Literary Supplement's review of the Register. 
The writer says that some people think that I shall outlive 
my generation. I hope not. Rip van Winkle and Maurus 
of Heisterbach had rather a poor time. However, I sup- 
pose he means my diary. Yes, that may live if it be true 
that Veritas prevalebit. After ten impressions sold out of 
two volumes dealing day by day with the most dramatic 
and contentious epoch of all time, I have not had a single 
letter to deny any statement made in it relating to the 
war. If my contemporaries cannot refute me, how can 
history do so? A few old cats have squawled privately. 
How ungrateful, when twenty years hence they will mostly 
be dead leaving no memory except in my pages and on a 
mouldy and neglected grave in some obscure churchyard! 
"Waverley" went through six editions in nine months. I 
went through ten in four months and larger editions at two 
guineas a set of each two volumes. I wonder if that has 
ever been done before? 

Tuesday^ May 31, 1921. To-day the German Govern- 
ment must send in to the Allies a list of the so-called societies 
of autoprotection — Orgesch, Einwohner, etc. — which 
they intend to disband. The Bavarian decision on this 
matter is not yet announced, but Commandant de Charry 
told me to-day that it was only Munich and South (Upper) 
Bavaria that were obstinate, and that North Bavaria was 
ready to agree. 



A REVIEW 239 

M. Barthou, the War Minister, and General Buat ar- 
rived from Paris to-day. They were met by M. Tirard, who 
seemed a changed man, and by General Degoutte, and at 
two held a review of all the troops of the garrison in the 
Rheinstrasse. There was a small tribune erected. Barthou 
saw me and came to shake hands and made some nice 
remarks; so did Tirard who was very alert and bright. 
Degoutte invited me to the tribune, but I begged to be 
excused, as I wanted to take some snapshots of the troops 
with my new toy, a Goerz camera, and had an excellent 
place in front of the stand for doing so. The French In- 
fantry came by first, in marching order, looking fine, and 
followed by their machine guns. Then came the Algerian 
tirailleurs and then the Morocco troops, all quite good and 
steady, but the Algerian Tambour-Major was not very 
skilled in chucking his stick in the air and catching it and 
I was constantly expecting him to miss it. The 75's on 
motor-lorries were very attractive. Then came the long 
155 's drawn by motors, then the cyclists, flocks of them, 
then tanks which looked most spiteful and were fast- 
moving little Renaults, not one man of the crew being 
visible; then the armoured cars, still with no protection for 
their tyres; and finally the various auxiliary services, while 
the aeroplanes hovered above. A very good show, the men 
looked well, and their officers and sous-officiers were ablaze 
with war decorations. There was a pretty fair crowd look- 
ing on, but mainly French, I think. OflScers pretty well 
mounted. The Cavalry acted as escort to Barthou and 
looked well. I snapped all arms except the 75's and the 
cyclists who passed while I was renewing a film. 

Lunched with an American Red Cross man called Las- 
siter; a nice fellow, on his way with his own car, a 50 h.p. 
8-cylinder, to Strasbourg, to bring back to Coblenz some 
U.S. civil dignitary. He told me that the American 
Y.M.C.A. spent $60,000 a month at Coblenz and only got 
a quarter of the money back from the men. They supply 
papers, books, and magazines to the American soldiers for 
nothing, and also materials for all games. Many of the 



240 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

fathers and mothers of the Americans are natives of these 
parts, which L. does not like, but he says that the German- 
Americans are gradually being sent home. Of course it is 
very useful to have a few German-speaking Americans for 
Military Police, etc., but the fact of some parents of the 
men being here, combined with the habit of the Americans 
of walking out openly with the German girls, must affect 
American sentiment. 

Went to see the Stadt Park in the afternoon. There is a 
cafe there which seems to be an attraction, and it has a 
terrace with a fine view over the town and down the river. 
In this quarter there are streets of villas built by the town 
for the French married officers, my jarvey told me. They 
would have cost some £1500 each in England. 

I saw yesterday that the Saar Commission, or at least 
the French part of it, had gone to Berlin. Do not much like 
it. But when we buffet the French and L. G. talks so un- 
wisely of "new friendships," we cannot complain if France 
begins to look after herself. I fancy that that phrase has 
given the deepest offence of all. 

Wednesday, June 1, 1921. A piping hot day. Railed to 
Frankfort. Chiefly to see Herr Richard Merton of the 
Metallgesellschaft, to whom Troughton had given me a 
letter of introduction. He talks English well and had been 
much in England and the United States; a very fine office 
and they combine banking with their other business. I 
asked him for his views on the present position. Pie thinks 
that we are individually sane, but nationally mad. He says 
that France won about one-fourth of the victory and ex- 
pects one hundred per cent of the profits. He agrees that 
coal is at the bottom of the present troubles. His own firm 
in the Lahn has suffered from the Ruhr partiality for 
Sweden and Spain, just like Lorraine, and he puts it down 
to cheap foreign prices. He wants us to remain in with the 
United States and to dictate policy together. We can then 
exercise such pressure that the German bonds in French 
hands will be unsaleable. He also wants us to let the Ger- 
mans smash the Poles on Upper Silesia, but I said it would 



VISIT TO FRANKFORT 241 

not do, as Poland would declare war and the French enter 
the Ruhr. He wants the customs duty taken off and the 
twenty-six per cent too. Germany can trade and pay by 
keeping her present resources and by having the frontiers 
thrown open, but if not, not. He criticised the Allies and 
thought that none of their statesmen dare tell them the 
truth. But he also criticised his own people and said that 
they must abandon all dreams of being a Great Power and 
set to work. They had been bad losers, he admitted. He 
had been reading Bismarck's memoirs over again and 
found that since his death the Germans had made every 
mistake against which he had warned them. R. M. is a 
strong Imperialist and says that there is no authority and 
that without it the State could not go on. He had been on 
Groener's staff in the war, and said that if Ludendorff had 
been a South German and Groener a North German they 
might have won the war. A pleasant fellow with a quick 
brain and reputed to be very capable in his business, but 
he gave me no suggestion of any real value. 

Frankfort is a fine and interesting town. It is not too 
big to stifle the Main as London stifles the Thames. The 
banks of the Main are pleasant in parts of the town, as 
Goethe found them in his day, and like him I found it 
agreeable to cross the Main and contemplate the scene 
from the other side. 

Fine buildings, some broad streets, with trees and shade, 
outside the busiest parts. Rather a fine statue of Bismarck 
and Germania. The theatre good, but makes a shameless 
and unsuccessful effort to pretend to be higher than it is by 
reducing the size of the higher figures. A fine art which 
this particular architect has not grasped. The old part of 
the town round the Romerberg quite interesting. Much 
that is really old, but there are some faked-old houses. 
The old nooks and narrow lanes round the Romer are the 
most attractive bits. The Kaisersaal has little to recom- 
mend it and is also mock-old, very largely. It was in the 
Rbmer that Goethe acted as a servant in order to see all the 
dignitaries who were assembled there on a great State 



242 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

occasion. And to think that only the menial of that day 
survives in memory and that all the great dignitaries who 
never noticed him are utterly forgotten! Truly a triumph 
of mind over things which do not matter! The portraits of 
all the Emperors rather good. I see that several of them 
had their moustaches turned up like Kaiser Wilhelm II. 
He probably took his fashion from them. Went into a few 
old curiosity shops and drew blank. Then remembered the 
number of Jews in Frankfort and did not look any more. 

The shops and show places mostly shut from twelve to 
three, so there is not much time for a day-visitor to see the 
sights. But I went to the Stadel Gallery across the river 
in order to see Rembrandt's "Blinding of Samson" which 
used to be at Schonbrunn. I take off my hat to the Habs- 
burg for selling this picture. A gruesome work, strongly 
and even superbly painted, of course, but I am glad it is not 
in London. It is frightfulness in excelsis. The Stadel who 
made and endowed this gallery had fine taste in Old Mas- 
ters, especially Dutch. I liked immensely the two Franz 
Halses. Also Rembrandt's portrait of a 'woman, a Cuyp, 
a Vermeer, and a Ruysdael; nearly all the Dutch pictures 
are good. The mass of the German pictures might well be 
exchanged for one really fine Velasquez. There never was, 
there is not, and there never will be, a German school of 
painting. 

But the Lenbachs, in a little end room by themselves, 
are fine. William I, Bismarck, and Moltke, most striking. 
They look so sad. Was Lenbach prophetic.'^ Gladstone's 
portrait by Lenbach here too, most characteristic, but it 
is all too dark and dirty-looking, while there are not 
enough high lights on the face. Still, there is the old eagle, 
the greatest head of our times, in any country. The Bis- 
marck portrait I have seen before, a replica probably, in 
the house of a German colleague at Brussels long ago. It is 
a tremendous thing, all character. Von Kaulbach's por- 
trait of his wife is charming, a perfect pose. The Trustees 
of Stadel must have catholic tastes. Tischbein's portrait 
of Goethe in the Campagna I loathe, but it remains with 



GOETHE'S HOUSE 243 

one. There is one room for the most modern, filled with 
the ne plus ultra of childish futurist abortions. A man who 
loved his Vermeer and Hals could never have bought this 
ridiculous rubbish which must make Stadel turn in his 
grave. 

Missed Gosling the Consul-General, and Goethe's house 
was shut. Think I will go again to-morrow. 

Thursday, June 2, 1921. To Frankfort again. Saw Gos- 
ling and had a good talk; went to see Goethe's house: hap- 
pily I have his autobiography with me: returned to lunch 
with Gosling, his brother and sister-in-law who was Hun- 
garian, the Revd. Mr. Bullock-Webster, formerly a Master 
at Eton, and his daughter, a pretty and nice girl, and a 
pleasant American lady who married and then divorced a 
German officer, second thoughts being best. Then went to 
various shops and got some maps and books, looked at the 
statues in the town, and passed two hours with the editor of 
the Frankfurter Zeitung, Herr von Dewall, at Im Trutz 7. 

Goethe's house, or rather his father's, interested me much. 
The career of the great poet, and especially the first five 
chapters of "Dichtung und Wahrheit," are lost upon us if 
we have not seen this his first home. It is as nearly as 
possible as it was in 1755 when his father restored it, and it 
breathes all the spirit of those days. A charming old town 
house with Anne written all over it, and inlaid walnut furni- 
ture all belonging to the period. We must remember that 
everything was modern in 1 755 , even the pictures, as Goethe's 
father was a strong supporter of contemporary artists and 
furniture-makers, an example which, if followed in England, 
would evolve higher art. A comfortable house with plenty 
of room. Goethe's study is at the top of the house, and here 
too is his writing-desk where his first poems were written 
on what I can only call an Eton "burry " or bureau. Hope 
for the Third Form at last ! The light from the left, small 
panes about six inches square, all the windows opening in- 
wards, both top and bottom, each in two parts, a plan to 
copy . ^ An older house opposite, and the paved street a good 
way below. 

^ If one needs no blinds or curtains. 



244 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

I liked the corner fireplaces on the broad landings, each 
warming three rooms. Goethe's father's library a pleasant 
room with padlocked wire fronts to the bookcases and 
green silk hangings behind. All the paternal books still 
in their old places. A music-room with old spinets and 
other musical instruments, and a picture gallery with a 
lot of small and unimportant little daubs; black frames 
with gold edges inside, and all alike, as Goethe describes 
them. A jolly kitchen which also warmed the dining- 
room stove by a flue through the wall. Quite a good stair- 
case, but stone, with fine iron and wood balustrades. Each 
storey projects on the outside above the one below] it, 
as described by the poet. A new museum behind with 
much of interest. Evidently the whole has been preserved 
with religious veneration and there is nothing to jar. 
There used to be a view from the upper storeys out at the 
back, Goethe tells us, but the Kaiserstrasse has shut it 
all out; there is a little garden behind. The house of a 
very well-to-do German citizen of the eighteenth century. 

It : is well to recall the influence of Shakespeare on 
Goethe, which he so handsomely acknowledged, and that 
of contemporary English writers like Pope, Goldsmith, 
etc. The success of the "Vicar of Wakefield" in Goethe's 
house is interesting, also that of the "Rape of the Lock," 
but, strange to say, he nevers refers to Pope's "Essay on 
Criticism," and perhaps he never saw it. Had he known 
dear Easthampstead Park he would surely have appre- 
ciated the pastorals which were written in the happy 
valley where the old house stood. Strange to think how 
much chance has to do with our lighting upon books that 
influence us. 

Mr. Gosling, our Consul-General, I found very pleasant 
and well-informed. His brother just back from Transyl- 
vania and bitter against the Roumanians, but admitted 
that the peasantry are Roumanian. Mr. Webster extremely 
well-posted in all affairs in Germany and in Europe gen- 
erally. A man of intelligence with sound ideas. We had a 
great talk about taxation, commerce, the exchange, poli- 



THE FRANKFURTER ZEITUNG 245 

tics, and so on. This confirmed most of my views gained 
here, but added many details. Goshng takes what one 
may call views friendly to Germany. We were all severe 
on Korfanty's Poles. No one had any new solution for 
Upper Silesia. It is the opinion that the Germans keep 
down the mark, as it enables them to beat us all in trade, 
but Webster thinks that the United States regulates the 
mark value. Gosling and D 'Abernon communicate by pri- 
vate letters. A pleasant house and a good cook. We all 
agreed that native troops in control of a white people 
were a mistake, but Gosling said that these troops had be- 
haved well at Frankfort, and that the trouble which had 
arisen had been caused by the Germans. 

Looked at the monuments. Gutenberg's does not re- 
semble the Mainz figure, and I prefer the Frankfort con- 
ception because there are two other figures on the plinth 
representing the assistants who must have had a good deal 
to do with the business. Bismarck's statue rather fine, 
standing, with Germania on a horse behind him, and a 
dying dragon writhing on the ground. Behind is an ex- 
tract from one of his speeches delivered on March 11, 1867: 

Setzen wir Deutschland so zu sagen in den SatteL 
Reiten wird es schon konnen. 

I thought that if the Boches followed that advice now in- 
stead of trying to create illicit military organisations, they 
would do better for themselves. 

Found von Dewall expecting me, as Gosling had ar- 
ranged our meeting. His pretty and intelligent wife gave 
us tea and remained during our long talk frequently join- 
ing in. Von Dewall belongs to the small nobility. He is a 
youngish [man, a thinker, honest and moderate, who has 
made the Frankfurter one of the best and most reasonable 
papers in Germany. He thinks himself rather out of 
things here as his paper reaches Berlin twenty-four hours 
after the papers there are published, and there are no 
regular foreign correspondents here to spread his views. 
But, as I told him, properly organised Governments miss 



246 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

nothing, and his views reach the chief people if they want 
to know what Germany is thinking. 

We thought the position highly dangerous and that 
Silesia was the storm-centre. Of course he wants it to be 
German. We went into the Treaty, and he made the sug- 
gestion, which at first seemed legitimate, that if Briand 
added on the Southern Poles and Kreise to the industrial 
triangle the Germans might claim and add the German 
Western and Northern Kreise to it.^ He did not like my 
idea of an Inter- Allied control of the triangle for a period, 
he thought that it would leave a cloud hanging over the 
country. I thought the cloud better than a thunderstorm, 
and that it was our interest to gain time till people became 
calmer. 

Von D. admits Germany's defeat — by starvation as his 
wife added — and admits the consequences, but the word 
"reparations" he considers a reflection on German honour. 
The German papers formerly used the word Wiedergut- 
machungy which was all right, but now they used the other 
word and it infuriated the Germans, as it had an offensive 
meaning in German and implied that they were criminals. 
I thought that they had only to go back to their Wiedergut- 
machung. It did not matter to us what word they used. I 
asked if he accepted the Treaty. He said that he did with 
one reservation, namely, the admission that Germany was 
responsible for the war. I told him that I thought this a 
serious matter coming from him. The English were, I said, 
absolutely convinced of Germany's guilt, and besides the 
Germans in signing the Treaty had acknowledged it. The 
reason for the severity of the terms was Germany's guilt, 
but his admission confirmed the Allied belief that the Ger- 
mans were not in earnest and so justified all our actions 
now. He thought that the only thing to do in this matter 
was for neither side to discuss the question of responsi- 
bility which would be written about by our respective 
historians for ages to come. I asked him, if Germany was 
not responsible, who was? He said Austria, and then added 

1 But this would not do, as the Northern Kreise are not in the mineral area. 



TALK WITH VON DEWALL 247 

Ru55sia. I said that Austria was Germany's tool and that 
Austria mobihsed eight Army Corps before Russia mobil- 
ised. He thought that France had been in the making of 
the war, and I entirely differed. He made no charge against 
England, though his wife referred to the mobilising of our 
Navy, which of course brought from me the answer that it 
was assembled for manoeuvres under arrangements made 
and known months earlier. 

Then we talked taxation. He thinks that the income 
tax is nearly as high as it can go. He is paying thirty per 
cent on his modest salary. He excused the taxes not being 
all paid by saying that the German bureaucracy could not 
accustom itself quickly to new methods. The taxes were 
not all paid, but would come in soon. He admitted that 
many fresh taxes might be imposed and expected to see 
them affect coal, large estates, houses, etc. Dr. Wirth had 
talked yesterday of studying the increase of the coal tax 
to bring the coal up to the level of other European war 
prices. Germany had hitherto kept coal cheap to allow 
her industry to revive, as it has. The Germans had low 
wages and a low standard of living, but he admitted that 
the big industries and the banks made heaps of money. It 
was these people who owned the motor-cars which he met 
everywhere and I had seen at the Wiesbaden races. 

I told him quite plainly that I saw no hope for peace 
unless we controlled Germany until the old Imperial 
officers and the veterans had become too old to serve and 
Germany had turned to the performance of civic duties in 
a chastened mood and in the spirit of Bismarck's speech 
of 1867. 

He told me that if Bavaria was trying to accept the aboli- 
tion of the Einwohnerwehr, there were many officers and 
the hill people in Upper Bavaria still much against accept- 
ance. He approves of Dr. Wirth. We talked of many other 
subjects very frankly, and I found him a very reasonable 
man, with good knowledge of facts and anxious for a paci- 
fication. 

Gosling told me to-day that the Germans had published 



248 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

in pamphlet form their list of French war criminals and 
that it is very hot. 

Saturday, June 4, 1921. Another gorgeously hot day. 
I am thinking of the Playing Fields and the crowds that 
must be there to-day. Decided yesterday to go to Berlin 
to complete my information, and secured rooms at the 
Adlon. Sent off various wires. 

Went to say good-bye to General Degoutte in the morn- 
ing and as usual we went on gossiping without regarding 
the time until a hungry A.D.C., Captain Boisseau, in- 
vented an excuse for disturbing us when we found that we 
had made each other an hour late for lunch. 

I began by thanking him for all his courtesies and by 
telling him how happy I should always be to think of him 
here, as he seemed to me, without any flattery, exactly 
the man for the place. I imagined, I told him, from Bar- 
thou's speech on the Rhine — in which he had made the 
most charming remarks about England and the British 
Army in the war, and also about the need for Allies to 
keep together, and the intention of France never to annex 
the Rhineland — that we had reached the end of a chap- 
ter, and that provided the Germans kept their promises 
and no fresh incident occurred, we could regard the Ulti- 
matum incident as closed. I regarded Barthou as a very 
loyal colleague to Briand, and besides, Barthou had 
spoken in the name of the French Government. 

General Degoutte agreed. He saw no chance of any 
movement here now, but at the same time confessed that 
the future filled him with anxiety. He and all French 
soldiers who had been in Germany had been much im- 
pressed by the proofs of wealth and strength which they 
saw on all sides here. They had ruefully compared all this 
evidence of wealth, and the smoking factory chimneys, 
with the devastation in France. They could not help ask- 
ing themselves what would happen when the Germans be- 
came eighty millions and the French were still forty mil- 
lions. The teeming hordes of German children inspired 
serious thoughts, and then there was Austria whose desire 



FINAL TALK WITH DEGOUTTE 249 

to join Germany was a disturbing symptom. To this I 
replied that I agreed, but was of the opinion that each 
generation had to settle its own problems and should leave 
the future confidently to the next generation. We had 
beaten to the ground the greatest military monarchy of 
all time and had done our duty. It was no use trying to 
solve the problems of the next generation, first because 
it was not our business, and secondly because a host of 
changes were sure to take place, and these we could not 
foresee, so it was no good attempting to make cut-and- 
dried settlements of the unknown. It was really preven- 
tive war in another guise. 

Degoutte considered Upper Silesia to be still the great 
danger of the present moment and asked my opinion 
about it. I said that I could find good grounds for all the 
proposals in turn; for that of the Germans that all Upper 
Silesia should remain to them, because in a plebiscite they 
had polled sixty to sixty-five per cent of the votes; for the 
Korfanty line, because I believed that there was a tiny 
Polish majority east of this line; for Briand's desire to 
treat the whole mineral region as one, because the exploited 
and unexploited mineral region included both the triangle 
and the Pless-Rybnik Kreise; and lastly for the Anglo- 
Italian thesis because the industrial triangle was really a 
region by itself, containing all the great agglomerations of 
people in Upper Silesia, where the Germans had a 50,000 
majority. How can one reach any settlement then? asked 
Degoutte. I saw no solution except the continued control 
of the triangle by the Inter-Allied Commission and the 
division of the rest between Germans and Poles. 

We talked of Poland and were both gloomy about its 
future and inability to govern itself. Degoutte said that 
the military opinion had been given to the Supreme Coun- 
cil that the maintenance of order required the presence of 
36,000 troops in Upper Silesia. In place of that, though 
France had supplied 12,000 which was her share, there 
were only 14,000 troops altogether and it was not enough 
to keep order. Let the Allies make up their strength as 



250 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

they should ! France was expected to do everything. The 
Watch on the Rhine was a joint AlHed affair in which each 
Ally should share in proportion to her population, but 
this principle had here again not been adhered to. France 
practically supplied the troops and her Allies only criti- 
cised her. England did not understand France. There 
were two ways of opposing risings like those in Upper 
Silesia, or at Kaiserslautern in the autumn of 1919. One 
could either impose by a mass of troops, or one had to 
shoot. He viewed with the greatest repugnance any effu- 
sion of blood in civic strife and the whole feeling in the 
French Army was opposed to it. For example, at Kaisers- 
lautern the strikers had fired on the French and the latter 
had not replied. There had been more casualties on the 
French than on the German side, but the French forced a 
settlement because they had the mass. Le Rond had not 
superior force and so could not be held responsible for not 
suppressing Korfanty's rising. To shoot was altogether 
repellent to the French in such cases. If it repelled them 
to do so against strikers in Germany, how much more 
would not the same feeling inspire them in the case of 
their Allies the Poles, who said to the French, "Fire and 
kill us if you like, but we shall still sing the Marseillaise 
while dying." 

I turned to the French native troops in order to know 
his opinion about them. I said that I admired them as 
troops, but could not approve of their authority over a 
European population, and imagined that their presence on 
the Rhine helped to make even the Rhinelanders hostile, 
and in my view impaired the prestige of whites in the eyes 
of the native troops. 

Degoutte replied that this was largely an economical 
question. He had 25,000 native troops in the Rhineland 
and some 60,000 French, normal garrison. France could 
not afford to spare 25,000 more Frenchmen from recon- 
struction. As to the feelings of the Germans, it did not 
matter a straw whether France sent white, black, or yellow 
troops here, as the Germans were implacably hostile and 



FINAL TALK WITH DEGOUTTE 251 

would cavil no matter what was done. Degoutte said that 
the principles of the French Revolution were those of 
Jesus Christ, namely, that every man was free, equal, and 
a brother. He thought that this was a much bigger ideal 
than mine which was too severely practical. I said that 
I acknowledged the superiority of the ideal, but saw no 
empire of subject races consistent with it. If Abd-el-Kadr 
was a free man, equal, and a brother, why did the French 
suppress this brother? It was a long time ago, said 
Degoutte, but now, if a people rebelled and wished to be 
free, the French would applaud. But you were fighting 
battles only this week in Morocco, I said, why.'' Because 
the tribes punished were incorrigible robbers, and besides 
there was a Sultan and nothing was done without his 
approval. I suppose that I must have smiled, for De- 
goutte added that he supposed I should say that the 
Sultan was in France's pocket, but there the principle was, 
and it accounted for the presence of the native troops 
here. I said that it seemed to me, in French Empires or 
ours, that to indoctrinate a mass of unintelligent and un- 
educated natives with the idea that they were as good as 
whites or better, when they were not, was to ask for 
trouble. One day France might find it so, with all this 
vast force of native troops in her new army, and I thought 
that war and peace garrisoning of an occupied country 
were two different things. We ourselves had fought 
against 30,000 German-led natives in East Africa, and in 
war-time Germany would never in future have a leg of 
logic to stand on if she howled about the use of native 
troops. Degoutte turned to the Malgaches to help him 
out, and said that a day or two ago he was with Barthou 
near Treves and that when he reviewed the Madagascar 
troops the German population had assembled in thousands 
and that a German youth had presented a bouquet to 
Barthou. This was because the Malgaches were Chris- 
tians, and the Germans were astounded when they saw 
them in the cathedrals and churches, and asked, "How 
can these savages be Christians?" "But the Berbers are 



252 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

not?" I replied. "No, they were Mussulmans of course." 
It was no use pursuing the subject further. I shall watch 
in future with some interest the application of the princi- 
ples of the French Revolution to the French Colonial 
Empire. 

He asked me for my views on the Greco-Turkish ques- 
tion. I said that I meant to tease the authorities in Paris 
and Rome before long. They had all told me that they 
wanted to make Turkey a barrier against Bolshevism, 
and would not listen to me when I told them that the 
Turk would never be a barrier against anything. Sforza, 
it was true, had warned me that Russia would be in Con- 
stantinople this year if we did nothing, but his policj^ of 
pandering to the Turks did not postpone the loss of Con- 
stantinople, but rather promoted it. I told Degoutte that 
France and Italy had only been out for loot, namely, 
to get concessions out of the venal Turks, but Moscow 
had bribed higher, and the Turks had flung the Treaty 
with France back in her face. I was still convinced, like 
Herodotus, of the eternal hostility of Europe and Asia, 
and the question had become much complicated by our 
Eastern possessions, but the heart of the matter was un- 
changed, and our business was to support the Greeks who 
were in the forefront of the battle now as they were 
twenty- three centuries ago. The Turks were just a war- 
like people, a scourge of Christians, who had lived and 
would die with arms in their hands. The theories of Bol- 
shevism were repugnant to them, but they wanted money 
and arms, and these Moscow gave without conditions. 
How could the Turks hesitate? 

We parted with mutual expressions of good- will. 

Am amused to read that Ormsby-Gore asked the P.M. 
in the H. of C. whether I was with the Greek Army and 
whether I had an official mission! The P.M. replied 
that the Government had no information of my move- 
ments. 

I also see that Mr. Harmsworth says that the Polish 
insurgents number between 60,000 and 100,000, and "it 



CONCLUSIONS 253 

is hoped that the six British battalions now on their way 
will render the force at the disposal of the Inter-Allied 
Commission adequate to restore its authority." On what 
does this hope rest? On the chance that there is no fight- 
ing, I presume. 

Took a last stroll round Mainz, but the intolerably 
oppressive heat drove me into a tram before long. This 
climate explains the Rhinelanders. It is like Cairo in 
August. 

Sunday, June 5, 1921. What are the conclusions to be 
drawn from these three weeks on the Rhine.'* If we con- 
sider the French first we must extend a very sympathetic 
friendship and consideration to them. They were wan- 
tonly attacked in a most unprovoked manner and suffered 
fearfully in the war in men, money, and damage of all 
kinds. They did not get paid even such reparations as the 
Treaty allowed them until, two and a half years after its 
signature, an ultimatum brought the Germans to book. 
Had not France maintained compulsory service and her 
present large army, we should have found Germany by 
now rearmed and unready to carry out the Treaty. 
France bore the greatest brunt of the war, and after a war 
fought in common with her Allies, was left to bear the 
greatest burden of the guardianship of the peace. On the 
Rhine she finds the great bulk of the troops. The same in 
Silesia. She is alarmed for her future because of the large 
population of Germany, her almost intact industries and 
country, and her obvious intention to seek revenge at the 
first opportunity. The Anglo-American guarantee failed 
France and she had to look after herself. So she seeks to 
make alliances with the States round Germany, and this 
necessary policy compels her to be unduly lenient to Kor- 
fanty's bandits who flout Allied authority in Silesia. 
France cannot bear that the two great armouries of Ger- 
many, the Ruhr and Silesia, should remain in German 
hands, and those who force France to leave those districts 
in German hands will make themselves responsible for the 
consequences. France is in this fearful predicament, that 



254 WITH THE FRENCH ON THE RHINE 

if she leaves Germany all her resources to enable her to 
pay France, she may be paid, but Germany, the payments 
ended, will have all these resources to enable her to renew 
the war. If France takes hold of these resources, Germany 
cannot pay France and France will be financially broken. 
An Anglo-American guarantee of France against aggres- 
sion from Germany will cover the whole danger, for Ger- 
many will never fight such a combination again, but there 
is no sign of such a guarantee, and therefore France feels 
bound, for her own security, to look after herself. 

Belgium necessarily stands with France, since events 
have proved her to form part of the French front whether 
neutral or not. She has remodelled her Army. She is a 
valuable support to France, but has her own trade to look 
after, and does not like to see her fate so much in French 
hands. She would prefer an alliance with England, Italy, 
and France, and this quadruple alliance, which would hold 
the old frontiers of Rome on the Rhine and the Alps, 
would be wholly in our interests so long as it was strictly 
defensive. If an Anglo-American guarantee were a comple- 
ment of the Alliance, Europe would quickly settle down. 
That is certainly our interest, and therefore indicates our 
right policy. But we must help France more to cause peace 
to fructify, and our miserable show on the Rhine and in 
Silesia is unworthy of us, even if everyone knows that 
our other troubles just now impede our action. 

The present German Government seems honest and to 
want to carry out the terms of the Treaty. But it is weak, 
and the Right parties have quite other ideas. The Ger- 
man people want peace and are ready to work. Every good 
German naturally looks to a recovery of his lost territories 
some day, and most of the country has been implicated in 
these stupid secret organisations which we are endeavouring 
to break up. The old Imperial officers and war veterans 
are all for these organisations, but, as time goes on, they 
will apply themselves to other matters, and every year 
gained counts much. I think that Germany can pay if 
she keeps the Ruhr, and the Allies — not the Poles — 



CONCLUSIONS 255 

control Silesia. In this event the Rhine customs should 
drop so long as she pays. Germany can tax drink and 
tobacco more. She can tax coal more. She can apply the 
remedies of Hegediis to landed estates and houses. With 
her low exchange, and in spite of paying reparations, she 
will largely dominate the markets of Europe, which we 
must fail to do while Labour demands higher wages than 
trade can bear, and completely disorganises business and 
destroys our markets by its strikes. Europe is on the way 
to recovery, but German reparations rule everything, and 
the Silesian problem affects not only reparations, but all 
Central Europe which depends on the Silesian coal. The 
nature of the Silesian settlement affords, therefore, the 
index to the future of Europe. We must, however, be pre- 
pared for a Germania Irredenta cry increasing in volume as 
time goes on and Germany becomes stronger. This cry, 
of which the Anschluss in Austria is a symptom, will re- 
quire cool and firm handling or it will lead to great trouble 
hereafter. 



CHAPTER X 
BERLIN AND VIENNA 

Arrive at Berlin — A talk with Lord D'Abernon — The Kaiser Friedrich 
Museum — Our German policy — A conversation with Professor Hans Del- 
brllck — Emblems of imperialism — Mr. Finlayson on German State 
finance — Germany must double her revenue to pay reparations — The 
Chancellor, Dr. Wirth, at the Embassy — General von Seekt, War Minister 

— Their views on events — The Rodensteiners no more — How the Bol- 
shevists plotted to invade Germany — A conversation with Chancellor 
Wirth at his ofl5ce — Views on finance — Germany can pay — He wants 
us to help him — Militarist dangers — The Universities — He shows me 
Bismarck's rooms — An interesting figure — Lunch with General Nollet 

— We discuss the work of his Commission — M. Haguenin and his col- 
leagues of the Reparations Delegation — A British view of disarma- 
ment — Colonel Thelwall's views — Uninspiring Berlin — The Embassy 
interior — A perfect hostess — American Embassy views on Germany 

— A conversation with Dr. Rosen, Foreign Minister — Return to Paris 

— An exchange of ideas with Lord Hardinge — Return to London — 
Off to Roumania — Munich — Some Bavarian opinions — Vienna — A 
provincial procession — Austria's mountaineers — A talk wtth Chancellor 
Schober — His first acts — Dr. Hertz's views — Austria a colony — How 
Austria obtained her best information during the war — The situation in 
Austria — Only a third of expenditure met by revenue — The League's 
financial plan — Vienna holds her own. 

Berlin, June 6, 1921. Arrived here this morning after a 
cool night journey. Saw the Ambassador, Lord D'Aber- 
non, before lunch. He tells me that the German armed 
bands in Upper Silesia are on a long line, Ratibor-Oppeln, 
facing east and part of it is not far from Gleiwitz. He thinks 
that the Germans have put themselves in the wrong by 
this advance. The German Commander Hoefer is to meet 
General Heneker at the latter's Headquarters to-day at 
11 A.M. It is apparently the plan that three of our battal- 
ions should be strung out on this long line to keep the 
Germans out. Le Rond declares that he will evacuate all 
the industrial area if the Germans advance any further, 
but I do not see the logic of this declaration. Told D 'Aber- 
non, in reply to his question, what I thought the only 
peaceful solution to be and how utterly opposed I was to 
the despatch of our present weak force. D'A. is not op- 



TALK WITH LORD D'ABERNON 257 

posed to the suggested solution of the United States Em- 
bassy ^ and said that he would not object to it. He thought 
that the Germans were putting themselves in the wrong 
by their advance which was much more forward than peo- 
ple had imagined. We are to talk to-morrow. 

In the afternoon the text is published of an ultimatum 
from the Inter-Allied Commission to Hoefer telling him 
that unless he withdraws to a named line and begins to 
retire within twelve hours they will — what! attack him.? — 
DO, run away and evacuate the industrial triangle, and let 
the Poles back into it, a scurvy trick. We have fallen 
pretty low, I must say. Hoefer's reply also published. It. 
is evasive and practically says that he has not the power ta 
order the Selbschutz back. A ticklish position. 

Saw Addison at the Embassy in the afternoon and had a 
talk on German finance, reparations, and taxes. Then went 
on to tea with Lady Kilmarnock — he is on leave at home — 
and heard about Berlin affairs. There seems to be a lot of 
gaiety going on, but chiefly in diplomatic society and in that 
of the various Allied Commissions. The old lot of the Ger- 
mans seem to have retired to their estates as in Austria and 
Bohemia. Few Germans join the Allied society and those 
chiefly when they have links of marriage, etc., with Allied 
families. Officers who frequent this society are turned out 
of their German clubs. There is, in fact, no real friendship, 
but the little diplomatic society of a great capital is always 
self-supporting socially and does not worry about an 
embargo. 

The Adlon a good hotel. But three-quarters of its clients 
are foreigners, largely Americans who swarm in Germany 
now. The replacing of paper table-covers by linen ditto is 
regarded as marking the close of a phase in the war ! It is 
just completed, but linen napkins still unobtainable, the 
bread is not white, and cream is not to be had. The prices 
here are just treble those of Mainz. A delightfully cool 
morning, but it was very hot later again. The Germans 
here and in the Rhineland, especially if they are bald, make 

* See entry for June 13. 



258 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

a point of going about without hats in the most broiling 
sun. They must have precious thick heads. Perhaps this 
accounts for their actions in 1914. 

Met Mr. Wilcox, the D. T. resident correspondent here. 

Tuesday, June 7, 1921. Spent the morning at the Kaiser 
Friedrich Museum looking at the Dutch pictures only. A 
fine collection, the van Eycks most remarkable, the Rem- 
brandts numerous, some very fine Vandycks, and the Rubens 
room filled with examples of this master whose female 
models were exceptionally expansive and repulsive. Nearly 
all the early Flemish and Dutch of any note are represented, 
but the pleasure a little spoilt by chattering copyists at 
work and by the horrible stuffiness and heat of the rooms. 

Lunched at the Embassy with the D'Abernons; Mr. 
Edwards and Mr. Bunbury also there. Lady D 'A. looking 
younger and lovelier than ever. I liked the Lenbach of her. 
It has never been exhibited, but is very fine indeed. We 
had a long talk about all the events of the day. D'A. 
thinks that the outlook is much brighter to-day than yes- 
terday, so I suppose that Hoefer is not going to advance. 
It seems that we then propose to form a British line west 
of Gleiwitz and to tell the Poles to fall back behind the 
French who will form another line further east. If this suc- 
ceeds the process is to be repeated until the insurgents have 
disbanded or crossed the frontier. At the same time the 
northern portion of Upper Silesia is to be cleared of bands. 
A quaint sort of plan, but it seems that French are also to 
be with British troops. It would be better to have one com- 
bined line and to sweep east. However, we shall see what 
happens. L. G. has gone away ill for ten days and H.E. 
thinks that by that time matters must be better or worse, 
he hopes and believes the former. 

Generally speaking our policy seems to be one of moder- 
ation, and innocent of all vindictiveness. H.E. thinks that 
we have turned many worse corners, notably about repa- 
rations, and he hopes that with Harold Stuart and General 
Heneker on the spot matters may be arranged. The Ger- 
man Ministers tell him that Korfanty is like a bull and not 



OUR GERMAN POLICY 259 

easy to deal with. They understand and approve of the 
English policy. H.E. thinks that Wirth's Government 
may prove to have more stability than many people con- 
sider likely. He is all for Wirth and admires as I do Briand's 
clever handling of a very diflScult crisis. He also thinks 
highly of the work of Nollet's Commission, and does not 
believe that any other people would have surrendered their 
arms as the Germans have done. But he says truly that 
when the control is removed, the Germans may rearm, and 
he thinks that the claim which the half-defunct League of 
Nations has to watch the Germans under Article 243 (.?213) 
of the Treaty is a very poor protection to us. Therefore he 
thinks that more attention should be paid to the future 
guarantees for France than to minor affairs which we lay 
stress upon, and we are in accord that we shall have to 
come to an agreement with Germany on the subject, as we 
have so little right to a prolonged control under the Treaty. 
We are also of opinion that an agreed control might be 
maintained for some fifteen years until the old Imperial 
soldiers have forgotten war and Germany has returned 
to a civilian frame of mind. Will she ever.'' That is the 
question. But we can see. 

H.E. advises me to try and see Wirth, Rosen, the new 
Foreign Minister, Finlayson, our man on the Reparations 
Commission, and Haguenin, a talented French colleague 
on the same Commission. I want to see also General Nol- 
let, Hugo Stinnes, and Professor Hans Delbriick, and must 
see what luck I have. H.E. has seen Stinnes and says that 
he is considering the situation more in terms of business 
than of politics. Stinnes says that England and Germany 
must take Russia in hand together, but I am not anxious 
for such transaction. Stinnes tells H.E. that as a slump in 
industry is approaching, the French, if in the Ruhr, would 
soon find crowds of workmen out of work and would be- 
seech Germany to take it back 'again. I told H.E. of the 
situation on the Rhine, and we discussed a number of other 
matters connected with all these events. Lady D'A. says 
that the attitude of German society towards us falls and 



260 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

rises with the feeling of the hour, but that almost all the 
old lot whom we used to know are away in their country- 
houses, and that society is largely Jewish, when it is not 
diplomatic. 

In the afternoon had a long talk with Herr Merton, who 
is here to visit his business friends. We talked about Ger- 
man policy, industry, and taxation for a long time. He 
thinks that Germany can pay her debts if she is left free 
to trade and the sanctions are removed. He tells me that 
tobacco is coming in to Germany cheaper across the Belgian 
frontier than into Germany direct, and that this trade was 
now deserting German ports and going via Antwerp. I 
told him that the new customs line allowed no such prefer- 
ence. He had studied the regulations and assented that 
in principle they did not; it was the way the Belgians ap- 
plied the customs and discriminated and graded tobacco. 
I told him how I wished that there were one semi-official 
paper in Germany to give the Government view as the 
Norddeutscher and the Cologne Gazette had done in old days 
with their starred articles. The former, he replied, has 
been bought by Stinnes, and the present Government can 
scarcely use it. The Cologne Gazette is a good paper, but as 
it is in occupied territory and under Allied control, it is also 
unsuitable for the purpose. Merton thinks that the Frank- 
furter crabs the Germans too much and that it is not pop- 
ular — because it is a Left and not a Right paper, no 
doubt — but he says that everyone has to read it, as it is 
well edited and its business articles and news are quite 
first-rate. He tells me that Stinnes is not a Jew, though he 
looks like one. He belongs to an old Westphalian family. 

Dined with Wilcox at the Rheingold Restaurant and had 
a long talk over German matters. A hard-working, well- 
informed, and intelligent man who does not spare himself. 

Wednesday, June 8, 1921. Telephoned to Professor Hans 
Delbriick, who was the last German to take a meal at my 
house in London before the war, on an occasion when he 
came over to lecture at the London University. Went out 
to see him at his house in the Griinewald, 4 Kunz Bunt- 



TALK WITH HANS DELBRUCK 261 

schuh Strasse, about twenty minutes by taxi. I said that I 
had come because he was one of the few Germans who had 
kept his head during the war and I wished to congratulate 
him on having, in all his articles which I had read, pre- 
served his intellectual independence. What was he thinking 
now.'* I had his last book on my table, but wanted to talk 
of the present and the future and not the past. He has aged 
and is greatly saddened. He lost his eldest son in the war 
and is now badly off, but has a nice, quiet house and a good 
library. His second son had wanted to go to the University 
at Heidelberg. Delbriick had no money to send him there, 
so the youth worked as a common miner till he had saved 
enough money, and is now at Heidelberg. I congratulated 
him upon having such a son. D. is pessimistic about the 
future. What Europe could not understand, he said, was 
that Germany needed a strong Government to preserve the 
principle of authority in the State and he now saw no chance 
of getting it. German parties were not like the English 
which were mere clubs and not really divided on most prin- 
ciples. L. G., although almost a Unionist, could join the 
Radicals to-morrow without much loss of credit. In Ger- 
many parties were at deadly enmity and there was no real 
union in the Reich. His young people believed in Germany's 
future. He did not. He thought that the Crown Prince 
might come back some day, as he had a large following, 
but not the Kaiser. He said that all the same he regarded 
the Kaiser as a Pacifist and did not believe that he was re- 
sponsible for the war. As for his desertion of the Army, 
which many Germans reproached him with, what else could 
he do? I should read, and make all my English friends 
read Rosner's "Der Konig," an account of the life at the 
Imperial H.Q. during the war and especially of the last 
month in 1918. Rosner was a reporter of little account, but 
had won the Kaiser's confidence and had written a story 
which was absolutely true of this period. Only some remarks 
about the Empress Frederick were incorrect, as Rosner did 
not know that side of history. D. said that if the Kaiser 
came back, some twenty-six other German Kings, Princes, 



262 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

and Dukes would also have to come back, and that was im- 
possible. I did not see why. 

I asked him about the state of opinion at the Universities. 
He said that they were nearly all Nationalist and so were 
the students. The Church too. But there were adherents 
of the Left in some educational centres. 

D. is a Monarchist. He thought that a Hohenzollern 
could with difficulty return, as all his following would ex- 
pect a restoration of their old prerogatives and this was out 
of the question, and the Crown Prince knew it. Moreover, 
the Federal States would not admit a German Kaiser unless 
they had their own chiefs back. He was rather for an 
Elected Prince and thought that Bavaria and Brunswick 
stood the best chance. He thought, like D 'Abernon, that 
Dr. Wirth would last much longer than people expected, 
but D. raged about the position of Germany owing to the 
exactions of the Allies and was most pessimistic about the 
future, trotting out possible Bolshevism which I ventured 
to disbelieve in. 

As for the future I said that the first thing for Germany 
to do was to give proofs of good faith, and, instead of 
bothering about becoming a Great Power, to set to work 
to re-create and reconstruct, leaving the question of mili- 
tary power to the next generation. It was no good for his 
generation and mine to try to solve the problems of the 
future. We had enough of our own, and I told him that 
our distrust was largely due to all the secret military organ- 
isations which we had been left to discover for ourselves. 
He scoffed at the Einwohner, Orgesch, etc., and said that 
people only laughed at them, while, as for arms, Germany 
had nothing of the great warlike machinery necessary, and 
even if the Reichswehr were prepared for triplification, 
which he did not admit, it was only a drop of water on a 
red-hot iron. He was an advocate of the balance of power, 
and now this had been destroyed with fatal results. 

We had a long discussion about Upper Silesia and I told 
him my views, and Briand's theory, and all the difficulties 
so far as he did not already realise them. We discussed what 



TALK WITH HANS DELBRUCK 263 

history would say of these times. D. thought that history 
would fix upon the want of great men as the distinguishing 
feature. If Germany had had a Bismarck and a Moltke 
instead of a Ludendorff and a Tirpitz, things would have 
been different. If you had had a Bismarck we should have 
had no war, I rejoined. He has the lowest opinion possible 
of Ludendorff and Tirpitz and attributes to them and to 
the Revolution the collapse of Germany which he bitterly 
resents and cannot get out of his mind. He was moderate 
during the war, but now I think he hates the Allies with 
the deepest hate possible. But he impressed upon me that 
Europe was utterly wrong in regarding Germany as a 
danger. It could not be with her warring parties and with- 
out any semblance of authority and without an army. That 
view does not give us an incentive to promote the resur- 
rection of either. 

I branched to ancient military history, his particular 
sphere, in order to end the talk on a slightly more agreeable 
note, and presently we were immersed in Marathon and 
Salamis and had all the maps out to argue how the Greek 
and Persian armies and fleets were placed during the 
battles, and in this congenial exercise forgot present history 
and lived in the past. So we parted, with much the same 
formality and coldness as that during our meeting and our 
talk. He is not yet really resigned enough to talk. The iron 
has entered into his historian's soul. Between us and the 
Germans the war has killed even purely intellectual friend- 
ships. 

Joseph Addison came to lunch and we had a change, or 
at least I had, in a most amusing gossipy talk about Ger- 
many, Paris, and our Embassy during the war. Lord Bertie 
and his pecuharities, and so forth. Addison's pet theory 
for reparations is to deduct a percentage of the cost of all 
German exports in all the countries to which they are ex- 
ported — not only Allied countries — but I do not see how 
this can be arranged and he admits that D 'Abernon does 
not agree with the scheme. He speaks very highly of H.E.'s 
ability and good sense in his difficult post. 



264 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

Strolled round the Royal Palace which still flaunts the 
gold crowns, the eagles, the Cross — what would people 
say to a gold Cross over Buckingham Palace? — and all the 
rest of the emblems of Imperialism. Also looked at the 
equally deserted Palace of the Crown Prince, the statues 
of the Great Frederick, and the William I statue. It is so 
strange to see these places shorn of all the old pomp and 
glory. They leave us thinking and wondering. Cannot 
still, for the life of me, understand why the Kaiser built a 
renaissance cathedral just outside his drawing-room, win- 
dows. The inherent defect of everything German is lack 
of taste. Even the really fine and characteristic statue of 
Frederick the Great would be far finer were it on a plain 
plinth with all the etceteras removed. 

Went on to see Mr. H. C. E. Finlayson, the capable 
member of our Reparations Commission here. A shrewd 
Scot of cool and balanced judgement, trained under Sir 
John Bradbury. What I wanted to know was the precise 
situation of Boche State finance ^ and their chances of 
paying their way and paying us. It seems that their 
revenue and expenditure (ordinary) are made to balance 
at about 47 milliards of paper marks, but extraordinary 
expenditure still shows a deficit of 33 ditto to be covered 
this year, 1921. There are also 175 milliards of floating 
debt, paper marks, in the form of Treasury Bills. No real 
attempt has been made to arrest inflation. The actual fidu- 
ciary currency is 80 milliards of paper marks. The gold 
reserve is down to 1.090 milliards gold, or about £54,000,000 
at present rates of exchange. There is also an anticipated 
deficit of 12^ milliards of paper marks on railways ex- 
pected in this financial year in spite of the doubling of 
railway fares, etc. This is not shown in the estimates, but 
has since been admitted. The sum owing for reparations 
this year is 40 to 50 milhards of paper marks — 3.3 
milliards gold marks.^ 

^ Note that eleven to fourteen paper maiics equal one gold mark, the figure 
depending on the New York Exchange. 

2 Namely: 2 milliards of gold marks as per ultimatum, plus 1.3 milliards of 
gold marks = twenty-sL\ per cent of exports on 1920 figures. Total, 3.3 mil- 
liards of gold marks. 



FINLAYSON ON GERMAN FINANCE 265 

Leaving aside the extraordinary deficit, which will be 
practically absorbed in the reparations, and the Treasury 
Bills, etc., the position is roughly that the revenue produces 
47 milliards of paper marks and that the liabilities are : 

40-50 milliards, paper, for reparations, a conventional figure on account 
of the doubt what the 26 per cent will bring in. 
12| •* " " railways. 

47 " " " ordinary expenditure. 

Total 99| to 109|, leaving a deficit to be made good of 52^ 
to 62^ milliards. In other words, the revenue of last year 
must be more than doubled, and this is the case when 
Silesia, the sanctions, depression, and the loss of the Rus- 
sian market seriously hamper trade. Our old trade with 
Germany, 141 millions sterling in 1913, has been practi- 
cally destroyed by all these things. 

• Can Germany produce a revenue of, say, 110 milliards 
of paper marks, and how? This really means can she find 
these 40 to 50 milliards of paper marks to pay the Allies the 
3.3 milliards of gold marks a year.^* On the whole, if her 
trade is freed of hampering and encumbrances, and the 
mark does not fall too much,^ she can. She can find 1.3 
milliard gold marks (1) from deliveries in kind, notably 
coal, dyes, timber, ammonia, wooden houses, and as much 
German labour as she is allowed to use; (2) from the oper- 
ations of the German Reparation Recovery Acts which are 
paid in to the Reparations Commission by the Allied 
Governments which may bring in 250 million gold marks 
a year, and by (3) fresh or increased taxes on coal, beer, 
brandy, tobacco, sugar, the turnover or Umsatz tax, the 
unearned increment tax, etc., which may give about 1.6 
milliards of gold marks a year. All this means about 3.1 
milliards of gold marks a year which is near to the required 
figure of 3.3. 

Such a scheme includes neither increased income tax nor 
capital levy, nor would it mean a resort to such drastic 

^ By October it had fallen to 1200 marks = £ 1, or to about one-fourth the 
rate in June. This made Germany's task practically impossible. 



266 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

finance as that of Hegediis for Hungary. In fact, the land 
and the industrials would appear to get off comparatively 
lightly, and this may mollify the Right. Round this ques- 
tion will rage a battle, as the Left want direct taxation and 
the Right want indirect. It is a big thing to do and the de- 
liveries in kind have of course to be paid for in Germany or 
may lead to further inflation. No. 2 is paid for by the 
Allies to the profit of their protectionists. No. 3 is paid for 
by German consumers mainly. So far as I can make out, 
a German revenue of 110 milliards paper marks amounts 
to some £400,000,000 in sterling, and, allowing for the 
twenty-five per cent depreciation of gold, means a call ou 
the sixty million Germans of only half the amount of our 
present call on the forty-six million people in the United 
Kingdom. But Finlayson tells me that this comparison is 
unfair. 

I have not included in the above the cost of the armies of 
occupation. The recording angel may know the figure, but 
no one else does. It is to be limited topne quarter of a mil- 
liard in future, or at least this is all that the Germans are to 
be answerable for. 

Thursday, June 9, 1921. Cooler, some rain. Lunched at 
the Embassy and met the Chancellor Dr. Wirth, General 
von Seekt, the head of the War Office, two members of the 
German F.O., Dame Adelaide Livingstone, and Addison. 
The Chancellor is a tall and solid man of forty-one with high 
colouring and thickish brown hair and a moustache. He 
wears glasses. He was in a frock coat. He is of the Centre 
Party and was a schoolmaster. We found that we had both 
been students at Freiburg-i-B., and so had some common 
recollections of the town, cathedral, football ground, etc. 
He was through the war on the Russian front in Poland and 
Galicia as a private soldier, and said that this experience 
had enabled him to understand the partitions of Poland, 
though he thought them acts of injustice. He thought that 
the Poles were people who were only united in offensive 
policy abroad, and never in their internal policy. He said 
that there was a proverb that no Swabian became intel- 



CHANCELLOR WIRTH 267 

ligent until he was forty, so he had reached an interesting 
age, as he was forty-one. He had known English and had 
read his Shakespeare, but had then got out of the habit 
and was now reading the English papers for practice. He 
also speaks French quite well enough to get on. He does not 
smoke. He told H.E. to-day that he was quite sure to get 
his taxes and he was even humorous about them. Lady 
D'A. thinks him solid and not easily put out. He is not 
nervous and on wires as Dr. Simons was. Dr. WirtPi asked 
me to come and see him to-morrow. He was taken by my 
quotation from the Bismarck statue at Frankfort. 

I talked with von Seekt, who says that he has all the 
volunteers that he wants for the Reichswehr. They were 
coming on well and great pains was taken to see that they 
got the right men. He admitted that the Police were 
fine fellows, especially in Berlin. His great trouble had 
been that it had fallen to him to reduce the officers from 
16,000 to 4000. It was easier with the younger ofiicers, 
who were soon placed, but with the older officers it was 
different. I asked about the Rodensteiners, to which 
society some thirty of us belonged in old days. It has died 
a natural death with the disappearance of the old lot. 
Waenke von Donkerschweil is dead, Dame is at Constance, 
among the old lot of the Nachrichten Bureau of thirty 
years ago. Von Seekt is a thinnish man who looks as if he 
would order one to be shot at dawn without embarrass- 
ment, but in conversation he is agreeable. Dame Adelaide 
Livingstone is here about war graves. There are 5000 of 
our men buried in Germany. She contemplates a visit 
to the Baltic states where some eighty of our graves 
are. 

H.E. told me to-day that Hoefer^and Heneker had 
fixed things up between them. Hoefer had told Heneker 
how many Germans there were in his Volunteer forces and 
where they were. Now the movement against the Poles 
was under way and Harold Stuart and Heneker had taken 
hold of Le Rond and had told him that if he did not play 
the game they would take their troops away. The Chan- 



268 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

cellor seemed to think that the crisis was over, but the real 
trouble is with the Poles and I am not reassured yet. 

Talking at lunch, H.E. and one of the Germans agreed 
that the battle of Warsaw — where H.E. seems to have 
been of great service to General Weygand when the Poles 
would not take orders easily — was one of the most im- 
portant battles politically in history, for if the Bolshevists 
had won they would have swept across Germany and 
would only have been stayed on the Rhine. They were 
very cunning, well-informed, and cynical plotters. They 
were coming into Germany under the National (German) 
colours with the pretext of re-establishing German 
nationalism, and when they had got a grip of the country 
they would only then show their hand and substitute the 
Red flag. I asked what the Germans would do now that 
Lenin seemed to be moving more towards the political 
Right. They said that their game was to support him, 
and they seem to want us to do the same. I do not believe 
in any entanglement of this sort. Better for us to keep out 
of it all. 

Had another wrestle to-day with the German Budget, 
and was helped by Wilcox and Finlayson. Believe that I 
have got the general situation fairly well, thanks mainly 
to Finlayson's clear mind. I must say that I think the 
Germans have not been diligent in arresting inflation and 
that they ought to have paid off their floating debt and 
stopped the printing press by this time. Also one must 
conclude that they never attempted to find the money for 
reparations until they were brought to book by the ulti- 
matum. Was all this floating debt and paper money de- 
liberately kept going so that they might sham financially 
dead to the Allies .f* In the same way was not the cheap- 
ness of coal to restore their industries, and the cheapness 
of food, beer, etc., all part of the same game.^^ However, it 
is ended now, but if they had made the effort necessary 
they could have done more before. It is a good thing to 
have D'Abernon here. He is known as "the doctor of sick 
finance." He is very active and quick at things and has 



CONVERSATION WITH DR. WIRTH 269 

vast experience in these matters. He is also a man of the 
world, and that means more, in every profession, than 
most people admit. 

In the evening went for a short time to Dame Adelaide 
Livingstone's dance in the Lichtenstein's Allee. A very- 
pleasant party and a capital reel by some young Scots 
officers in kilts, and Mackinnon with the pipes. No 
Germans, and mainly Allies, with the Dutch, all the 
Allied Embassies and Commissions, etc. Met Baroness 
Gevers whose husband, the Dutch Minister, was so inti- 
mately associated with the closing days of the war in 
South Africa. Lady Kilmarnock's girl, still in the school- 
room and with her hair down her back, looked a pet. 
Baroness G. had been in Berlin all through the war and the 
Revolution. What an experience and what changes! I 
asked her when they realised that the Germans were going 
to be beaten. She said that she could not give a date: the 
fact dawned on them all slowly. *'Why do they say still 
that they were not beaten.?^" I asked. She laughed and 
said, "They may say that to you, but they all know that 
they were beaten." 

Friday, June 10, 1921. In the morning went to the 
Chancellor's office at 77 Wilhelm Strasse, Bismarck's old 
Olympus. Dr. Wirth arrived a little late, apologising for 
having been detained by wrestling over taxation questions 
with the Federal representatives. He was in country 
clothes which suited him better than yesterday's stiff 
frock coat. He looked uncommonly well and fresh and full 
of go. A very good colour. He speaks clearly and not too 
fast. When he gets interested, he fixes his eyes on one with 
a penetrating glance. He is decidedly intelligent and per- 
fectly honest and sincere, unless all appearances belie, and 
very easy to talk to. Quite nice manners and no side or 
gene of any kind. He did not talk at me nor lecture. He 
looked like a well-to-do factor from North Britain, and 
though we alternately talked in three languages we got on 
quite well. 

As he had begun on finance I followed up that line and 



270 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

told him how interested I was in his present work as 
Finance Minister. It was, he allowed, a heavy task. He 
knew roughly the Hegediis scheme in Hungary and said 
that the Socialists wished him to follow it, as it was so 
drastic and in line with their politics. But, as to the Hun- 
garian land policy, he thought that the big estates of 
Hungary were only found in few parts of Germany, and 
as the Germans had many small and medium-sized prop- 
erties,^ the Hegediis plan could not be applied rigidly. I 
doubt whether he means to offend the landowners by apply- 
ing it at all. It does not seem necessary at present. As for 
the plan of a first mortgage on houses, this plan depended 
on house rents being free. This they were not at present 
in Berlin. Were they in Hungary .f* I was not sure, but 
thought not. They certainly were not in Vienna. But the 
Societies tax of fifteen per cent? I asked. He admitted 
that it was now being prepared for use in case of need. 

Then we came to reparations, and he told me that, con- 
trary to the views prevailing in France, he thought the 
Paris scheme more favourable to Germany than that of the 
London ultimatum. I could not quite grasp the reasons. 
But he said definitely that Germany could pay the two 
milliards of gold marks a year. He had found more people 
ready to help him than he had counted on. He had re- 
cently addressed a body of industrial magnates and had 
found them much more amenable than he expected. Dr. 
Stresemann, the leader of the Volksparteiy had been sitting 
the other day where I was sitting and had given him the 
impression that he would support him. Even Hugo Stinnes 
had become much more moderate. Wirth thought it a 
misfortune that Stinnes had gone to Spa and had made a 
great political demonstration. An error had been made in 
sending him and would not be repeated. Wirth's trouble 
arises over the twenty-six per cent arrangement and over 
the eighty-two millions which he described as the third 
instalment of the reparations. 

He told me that in the position in which he was placed 

^ About one-half of the land is distributed in this manner. 



MILITARIST DANGERS 271 

he required to gain a little political success in order to 
affirm his position with the young German democracy and 
increase the confidence of his Reichstag. He belonged to 
the Centre Party which he described as the real governing 
party in Germany. 

He did not think that the Rhine customs were worth 
much to us and they severely injured German trade. The 
occupation of Diisseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort is a 
sanction which he also feels deeply. I suggested that the 
dates of June 10 and 30 might be important in this matter, 
for if all the claims of the Allies had been met at these dates 
they would be much mollified. He thought that the dis- 
armament was proceeding quietly and that there would 
now be no difficulty with Bavaria. 

I told him my view about the need for vigilance on our 
side until all the old Imperial officers and veterans had 
been merged in the civil population. I also told him that 
there were two things which we had long desired for Ger- 
many in England even before the war, namely, real parlia- 
mentary government in the first place, and secondly, the 
substitution of the civic spirit for the old militarism. We 
had got the first, how about the last.'^ Were not the Uni- 
versities, the clergy, and the students the props of militar- 
ism, and how could a spirit change except by a change of 
methods and even of men in education.'* 

This danger Wirth admitted. The professoriat had all 
spoken to the Imperial cue, like one man, and of course the 
students followed it. Germany had suffered terribly from 
the subservience of her high teaching staff to the Kaiser. 
So had the German Army, I suggested, by Generals telling 
the Kaiser what he liked to hear, and not the truth always. 
Dr. W. admitted it, but said that a change could only be 
made gradually at the Universities by selecting men of 
greater honesty and breadth of mind. The question was 
under study, and he agreed that all this question of the 
civic spirit was really far more important than anything 
else. As for the Rhine towns seized, he reverted to this 
more than once and said that it could be defended only on 



n% BERLIN AND VIENNA 

strategical grounds, and what was the use of holding 
these towns when Germany could be invaded anywhere 
and at any time? 

We talked of my mission from Lord Burnham and he 
asked several questions about it, inviting me to come and 
have a meal with him when I was in Berlin again. Then 
he asked if I would like to see Bismarck's working room 
and the other rooms of the Palace. I accepted and he took 
me round. A comfortable and large house, with pleasant 
shaded and turfed garden behind, apparently quite private 
and not overlooked. The great hall where the Berlin Con- 
ference took place is double the size of the room at the 
Ballhaus-Platz where the Vienna Congress was held. It is 
large and lofty. Bismarck's old study is medium-sized, in 
the centre of the Palace facing the Wilhelm Strasse. The 
chief piece of furniture left in it is Bismarck's old writing- 
table, one of those mahogany so-called "pull-down" 
writing-desks which are my pet abomination. It stood 
near the centre window, probably sideways or Bismarck 
would have got no light. The advantages of the desk prob- 
ably were that he could pull down the top and lock up 
secret papers when he went out of the room. For the rest, 
the only objects of interest were the portraits, one of 
Wilhelm I, another of Wilhelm II over the mantelpiece 
and a third full-length of Bismarck in his later days, by 
Lenbach. There was a sort of salon beyond with a kind of 
conservatory and a bear-walk further on. The Chancellor 
showed me the room where he, Wirth, held his Cabinets. 
It is at the back looking over the garden. Seats for about 
twenty people, with blotting paper, etc. A large map of 
Upper Silesia with the position of all the troops marked 
attracted my attention and we had some talk about it. 
There is a second larger council room where he meets the 
Federal people, but it only had green baize over it and 
nothing prepared for work. In general all this formerly 
occupied part of the palace has a disused and rather 
shabby aspect. The furniture a mixture of French, Vene- 
tian mirrors, some quite good, and some highly uninter- 



LUNCH WITH GENERAL NOLLET 273 

esting Italian religious pictures which Wirth admired and 
I did not. I could not help admiring the modesty of Wirth 
in not occupying the historic rooms. A pleasant visit and 
I found Dr. W. agreeable because he is totally without pre- 
tentiousness and talks naturally. His own room where we 
first talked is in the east wing of the house at the back. A 
large writing-table, and in a corner near the door a table 
and sofa and two armchairs where we talked. I keep on 
asking myself whether the attraction of Dr. Wirth comes 
from the character of the man himself or from the glamour 
thrown over his office by Bismarck, and I cannot decide 
what the answer may be. All that one can say is that here 
is a man who fills Bismarck's place at the age of forty-one 
and on his public form is an honest man who is striving to 
do his duty by his country and the world without fear and 
favour. He is simple, pleasant, intelligent, and strong, 
without a trace of heat or prejudice, but, for the rest, 
events will measure his statesmanship. 

Got back to the Adlon barely in time to lunch with Gen- 
eral Nollet, the very pleasant and capable head of the 
Inter-Allied Military Commission of Control,' his naval 
A.D.C. Lieutenant Michelier, and another older member 
of his staff. We sat from one to four talking and had a 
most interesting and often amusing discussion. Nollet on 
the whole will not commit himself about the result of 
German disarmament on the fateful dates. He says that 
he never believed in Bavarian intransigence, as he did not 
see why it should differ from other parts of Germany. 
Things appeared to be going well, but he could only con- 
clude when the figures were in to show final results. It was 
easier to conclude about material than effectives. I asked 
about the discrepancy between his and Simons's figure 
for guns, namely, 33,000 and 49,000. N. said that Simons 
had given the latter figure and it included guns which the 
Germans had said that they had destroyed. His own 
figure of 33,000 was what he could swear to. Yes, the 
German Army, like German industry, was powerfully 
equipped; they spared neither pains nor money. It was 



274 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

his object to break up all the Army, not only men and 
guns, but carts, harness, and the thousands of categories 
of warlike stores of all kinds in every arm and service. 
Then the rapid restoration of a modern army would be a 
long, costly, and difficult business. 

I thought that he rather approved of my proffered so- 
lution for Upper Silesia, and at all events he did not dis- 
sent from it. The Germans, he agreed, were certainly 
champion informers, as the French at Mainz had told me. 
Their motives were first, money; second, vengeance; and 
third, an honest belief that they were serving real German 
interests. The money motive came first by long chalks. 
Much was given away out of spite and for revenge. If a 
man were kicked out of the Reichswehr for no reason given, 
he would probably come to the French and say where 
there were arms concealed, especially if he had been in 
charge of them. This is a state of mind unaccountable to 
us and the French. 

He admitted that France could disarm had the Anglo- 
American guarantee stood. Germany would never have 
dared face such a combination again and the question of 
control would not have mattered. Now it was different. 
It was not a permanent safeguard to disarm Germany, 
but by strictly limiting effectives so far as was possible, 
and by destroying not only arms and guns, but also car- 
riages of all sorts, aeroplanes, harness, saddlery, and all the 
thousand of stores of all kinds of war material, France 
would probably have warning of an attack, as it would 
take so long to build all this up again. But he is plainly 
worried still about future control, as there is no effective 
means for jit in the Treaty. He would like the control to 
remain, but does not at present see how he can get it. I 
am not quite certain whether Nollet really believes that 
all the German promises regarding disarmament will be 
made good by the dates fixed. It may be, or it may not, 
that he pretends doubt so as not to let the Germans learn 
his opinion and believe that they have done enough. Per- 
haps he will just give the figures when all the returns are 



M. HAGUENIN AND HIS COLLEAGUES 275 

in and allow the Supreme Council to judge. He is a good 
steady man who inspires general confidence, and one can 
go bail on his conclusions. He tells me that his Commis- 
sion have worked in complete accord all through and have 
invariably arrived at unanimous conclusions. Nollet ad- 
mitted that the German Police were finer fellows than the 
Reichswehr, but said that the latter were the most valuable 
military force. He intended to see to it that the Police 
were real police hke the English and not camouflaged troops 
as they are now. 

Saturday, June 11, 1921. Professor Delbriick called in 
the morning to know my views about Churchill's speech 
at the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on June 8, 
briefly reported in the German papers, advocating an un- 
derstanding between England, France, and Germany, and 
declaring that the German exports to pay reparations 
would make her the first industrial nation in Europe. D. 
said that it was a speech which he might have made him- 
self. I had not read it. D. said that his diflSculty was that 
he could not conceive how the Germans could come to 
terms with the French. We had some talk about it. I 
fancy that the French feel like D., but business is business 
and seems to ignore national feelings. 

Met at M. Haguenin's pleasant rooms his colleagues, 
M. Beaumont, the Italian M. Brazziani, M. Berthelot, 
son of the General, and Mr. Finlayson. We had a good 
talk about finance, trade, industries, and reparations. 
Briefly stated, these experts of the delegation of the Repa- 
rations Commission do not believe in reparations. They 
say that Germany can pay only in gold or in goods. 
There is no gold to speak of, so goods must pay. There- 
fore goods must be not only exported but sold, for it is not 
the exported goods but the sold goods that produce the 
reparations money. So Germany will swamp all the 
markets which are open to her, depress our home trade by 
underselling it, and end with a dominant commercial posi- 
tion. On the other hand, the gold flowing into New York 
will affect the value of the dollar because Berlin will be 



276 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

buying dollars, and Germany might even seriously affect 
British currency. If protectionist tariffs keep out German 
goods, then Germany cannot pay. We cannot have it 
both ways, but we are trying to do so. Winston, whose 
speech I have now read, attacked the question from the 
other end, but they all agree with him. It is as simple as 
ABC. 

Finlayson explained the Chancellor's views about the 
twenty-six per cent. It seems that the ruling agreement 
has two clauses which are contradictory, one making the 
twenty-six per cent to be paid by the owner of the goods, 
and the other leaving it to be paid as Germany likes. The 
Chancellor's other point must refer to the eighty-three 
milliards of bonds due next November, but the actual 
payments yearly do not seem to be affected. These experts 
speak again of the fact that Germany was the first in posi- 
tion to trade on a large scale after the war because she had 
cheap labour, mobilised industries, and cheap coal. Her 
exports had been immense in 1920, with indecent profits, 
and her shipping was booming. Haguenin all the same 
believes that when Germany is paying hard, and her ex- 
ports bounding up, the mark will so improve that she will 
have a slump. It is all a mass of contradictions, and Fin- 
layson calls exports a sign of weakness and not of strength. 
Haguenin told me that some French and German industrial 
magnates were already in agreement, but the thing had 
not yet included all the interests which they wished to rope 
in. They say that Wirth means to double the price of coal, 
i.e., to increase it to 450 marks a ton. It was eleven to 
fifteen marks pit-head price before the war! They expect 
that the industrials will soon discover means for using lig- 
nite more extensively. They also say that the Swedish and 
Spanish ore now used in the Ruhr is more expensive than 
minette. This wants looking into, as I have been told the 
reverse. 

Sunday, June 12, 1921. Had a talk in the morning with 
X. He has been here eighteen months, but says that we 
must deduct some few months from that term on account 



X ON DISARMAMENT 277 

of the Kapp Putsch and some other events when work 
could not go on. He tells me that it is physically imprac- 
ticable to complete the disarmament by June 30, the date 
fixed by the ultimatum. The work will go on till the end 
of the year and possibly till next March, apart altogether 
from the question of post-war control later. He sees no 
reason to doubt the French idea of the intended triplica- 
tion of the Reichswehr, and of the existence of arms and 
equipments for such organisation. I told him that Del- 
briick had told me that his friends said that the Reichswehr 
had only 50,000 combatants. X, and Y, who was with him, 
smiled. X said that they could not say for certain that 
there were not more than 100,000, because men might be 
away on leave and so forth, and there was no certainty 
that the strengths were restricted to the authorised figures. 
He said that Z believed that there was not a single gun 
left. X thought this opinion optimistic and considered Z 
credulous. The Germans had much flattered him. In re- 
gard to the Police, he said that in Berlin they were mostly 
old N.C.O.'s of the Guard. The Police were not local as 
with us in England. They were a single force in the hands of 
the Government. It would be a job to demilitarise them. 
They were restricted to one rifle for three men and one 
automatic pistol per twenty, but whether this was true 
was a question. He thought that a continued control was 
advisable and took no exception to my fifteen years. 

The fortress guns were coming on well. The Germans 
had fallen into a trap here. The Treaty limited them to 
guns already in position. So they had collected all their 
heavies and had crammed them into the fortress, but had 
not placed many in position. So they were all rounded up 
and were now being destroyed. There was a hole in the 
Treaty about the Police. No term of enlistment was laid 
down and the Germans could take men and pass them 
through it. It was not certain what the actual terms of 
enlistment were now. Morgan said that the Commission 
worked well and in complete accord together. He said that 
I had probably found out for myself that nearly all the 



278 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

British officers in Germany were friendly to the Germans 
from a bare sense of justice. I said, yes, but the Germans 
told us that they liked us and hated the French, and told 
the French that England was the only enemy. Probably 
they told the Italians that they hated us both and only 
loved the Italians. So it really did not matter what the 
Germans said. Morgan agreed with this. 

Lunched with the Kilmarnocks. He is just back from 
home with the London news. Colonel Thelwall, the Com- 
mercial Secretary there, and the K.'s son and little daugh- 
ter. A pleasant little party. Thelwall says that he agrees 
generally with the views which I mentioned to him as those 
of the Reparations people, though he works on inde- 
pendent lines. He said that no one could understand the 
twenty-six per cent scheme, for if it were levied on all 
German trade with us it would have to be imposed on 
many things we needed, notably dyes, which could not 
stand such a duty. We might leave the German Govern- 
ment to scale up the duties to average twenty-six per cent, 
or let them make some fresh proposal. He was much op- 
posed to the new customs on the Rhine and called them 
wicked. I had told Morgan that I was sorry to hear that 
we could not give Germany a clean bill of health regarding 
disarmament by June 30, as the French were sure to make 
a row about it, and then the Ruhr loomed up again, and 
we should not be able to remove the Rhine customs and so 
give Wirth the little political credit which he needed with 
his people. Thelwall thinks that we are all still too unre- 
generate to adopt my plan of abolishing all economic 
barriers, and all customs on all frontiers, for a year, but 
says 'that undoubtedly liberty of international trade is 
the great aim to be kept in mind, and that only this lib- 
erty can lead to the pacification and reconstruction of 
Europe. 

Note that all the people to whom I speak about the new 
Commission of Guarantees wish it to be quartered here, as 
Berlin is obviously the only place where it can do its work 
properly. But it hankers after the flesh-pots of Paris, so 



UNINSPIRING BERLIN 279 

enchanting to so many other Commissions, and it ought to 
be ordered to stay here. Still, one must admit, Berlin is 
not an inspiring capital. It is not Imperial like Vienna, nor 
glittering like Paris, nor homely like London. It has really 
no points, and most of its public buildings are plastered or 
crowned with fiddling ornaments or statues which destroy 
a plan even in itself not ignoble like the Reichstag building. 
When you have said Brandenburger Tor you have just 
said all for Berlin architecture. Why? Because the Tor is 
Greek and simple. Those six massive Doric columns facing 
Unter den Linden, though not one hundred and fifty years 
old, are superior to all the rest of the public buildings in the 
town. Why do people design new things when there is 
Greek, Anne, and Georgian to choose from? If only the 
Berliners knew how vile their taste is! 

But there are some good interiors. At the Embassy 
to-night, where we were some eighteen to dinner, I thought 
the plan of the ground floor, barring the hall staircase, 
quite good. The arrangements are excellent for entertain- 
ing and very dignified. We were all English or Americans, 
and the Ambassadress a very perfect hostess. D'A. has 
gone home for Ascot. The little circular room in the 
centre of the ground floor rooms is curiously Adamsy, 
and the ballroom is fine; furniture and pictures also 
good. 

Monday, June 13, 1921. Wrote in the morning and then 
lunched at the American Embassy, at 7, Wilhelm Platz, 
with Mr. Dolbeare. There were five members of the Em- 
bassy including the Councillor and First Secretary. The 
Ambassador is away. Mr. Pennoya just arrived from 
London. We discussed Germany all the time. The only 
new suggestion that I heard about Silesia was that the 
Germans should keep all but the Pless-Rybnik bit and 
agree to open up a certain number of mines in Poland for 
the Poles. They do not think much of the Poles. In gen- 
eral I found that the Americans thought pretty well as we 
do about Germany and are to the same extent pro-German 
as we are supposed to be. They want to keep their German 



280 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

market. This is the leading thought. They strongly ap- 
prove of Wirth, and say that Rathenau is the only other 
Minister who counts. They are dubious about the effect 
upon various currencies of the movement about the world 
of great blocks of reparation monies. They suggest that 
the Military Control should be continued at reduced es- 
tablishments. They think that German Labour will never 
permit Monarchism to reappear. They regard the Univer- 
sity professors, who are State servants, as the supporters 
of the reaction, and not the schools, where there are no new 
books owing to high cost of printing, but good men are 
chosen to teach and to inculcate the new ideas. They are 
inclined to believe that Germany was busy amassing cred- 
its abroad secretly during the last two years, and did not 
talk about them for fear that they might be confiscated. 
They point out that Germany was under no obligation to 
pay reparations until her total indebtedness had been 
stated to her on May 1. They fancy that Germany will try 
to open up Russia and will also control the trade of Central 
Europe. I found them all apparently pro-Hungarian. 
They are for the abolition of the March sanctions, and 
think that if Wirth taxes coal he will still leave the price 
ten per cent below the world value to give them a pull in 
the market. This tax will tend to raise German wages and 
prices all round. I asked about a tax on Societies. They 
say that a tax on Societies on the Hegedus lines will give 
the State almost a controlling influence over most of them 
and will make it interested in their welfare. It will then be 
able to exercise a preponderating influence on the trade, 
whatever it may be, and on its world markets. They con- 
sider that the workman's wages in Germany are enough to 
support a single man decently, but not a family. 

At 5.30 I went to see Dr. Rosen, the new Foreign Min- 
ister, at 17, Budapeste Strasse, near the Tor. A tallish, 
thick man of about sixty with a moustache and a bit of a 
beard; rather slow and precise in his conversation, an of- 
ficial type, not like a Jew, though they say he is one, and 
the conversation was a trifle stilted at first until we came 



CONVERSATION WITH DR. ROSEN 281 

to subjects of mutual interest. Then he kept on warming 
up and soon became quite communicative.^ 

I suggested that he was regarded as a Kaiser's man, in a 
Cabinet where all the rest were of a Left or Centre com- 
plexion. He said that all the members of the Government 
shared Wirth's views. If they had not done so, they would 
neither have joined him nor have been asked to do so. 
"All diplomatists before the war were Kaiser's men," R. 
continued with much truth, "just as all yours were King's 
men; and as the Kaiser reigned till 1918 only the youngest 
diplomatists are anything else." 

We drank a lot of tea, and smoked a lot too, and it was 
just 8 P.M. when I finally left him. It was raining, I had 
come in by the garden gate and he insisted on going out 
with me in the rain with no hat or umbrella. There is a 
door from his garden which leads into the Chancellor's 
Palace garden adjoining. A pleasant enough place to live 
in, but R. complained that he never got any exercise now. 
He had sat with his back to the light in his study while we 
talked, leaving me facing it — an old trick of second-class 
diplomats — but as he came out into the garden I saw 
him better. I should say that Wirth means [to conduct his 
own foreign policy, and has taken Rosen for clerking on 
account of his wide experience, his reticence — though our 
talk scarcely bore it out — and his knowledge of the dip- 
lomatic ropes and routine. I thought that Rosen might be 
handled if he were taken the right way. He seems to me to 
be impregnated with the Japanese spirit. One must be 
prepared for a long pow-wow before things begin to come 
out. 

Tuesday, June 14, 1921. X telephoned in the morning 
and I went to see him. I asked why Nollet had not helped 
the Germans by telling them what other illicit organisa- 
tions he wished to be abolished. The answer amused me. 
Nollet was afraid that if he named them there might be a 

^ I am unable to publish the interesting and illuminating conversation 
which followed for two hours and a half as Dr. Rosen asked me to consider 
it confidential. I submitted it to him later and he allowed me to use only 
the paragraph which follows. 



282 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

great many others which he had not named, and then the 
Germans would say that he had not named them! But 
X said that the next German statement was almost due, 
so perhaps all will be well. It does no harm that Nollet 
should have mystified and terrorised Rosen, but rather 
good. The great thing is to get the job done. X said that 
there were only 22,000 of the Bavarian rifles to hand yet. 
Left by the 2 p.m. Warsaw-Paris express. 

Paris, Wednesday, June 15, 1921. Arrived 12.30 p.m. up 
to time, after a good journey. The devastated country 
en route is an ever-fresh reminder of stern truths. Had tea 
alone with X and we had a long talk comparing our re- 
spective experiences. He says that to-day the news from 
Upper Silesia is worse. He defends Hoefer's action, and 
says that Harold Stuart is up against Le Rond thoroughly 
now, and is in process of concentrating the British troops as 
a protest against Le Bond's intrigues. Le Rond had mis- 
chievously planned to scatter the British troops amongst 
the Poles and then to say to the Germans, See what your 
British friends are worth! X says that he knew Stuart in 
India and that he is a pretty stiff proposition when he is up 
against a man. X believes nothing of the accounts in the 
French press. He sees no light and no way out. I told 
him my view, and mentioned the American suggestion as 
interesting. He asked what it would mean, and I said I 
presumed sinking shafts, running headings, and equipping 
and organising some Polish mines in the Dombrova area 
for the Poles. The alternative to my plan and the Ameri- 
can seemed to us to be arbitration. i X said that the 
French were determined to carry out their policy in Silesia. 
I said Yes, it was a policy as Poincare had just naively 
admitted in Le Temps, but we all went there, not to pro- 
mote a policy, but to do justice, and that point of view had 
never been accepted by the French whose idea of jus- 
tice was to get what they wanted. I was glad that Stuart 
was drawing his men together. I said that such a weak 

^ It eventually came to this after the August Conference in Paris when the 
problem was relegated to the League of Nations. 



LORD HARDINGE 283 

force should never have been sent, and that I was for their 
coming away, and for giving the reasons openly. We could 
not go on with this dangerous fooling. We were risking our 
men's lives all the time. 

I asked X whether Lord Hardinge had not had a pretty 
hectic time since last we met. He said he had had. He was 
just oflf on leave two days before L. G.'s speech on the 13th 
when he received a wire telling him to await an important 
despatch. It came, and Hardinge went to Briand and 
delivered it. It was pretty sharp, and H. had to tell Briand 
some unpleasant things, but he did so in diplomatic language 
which did not give offence, and all would have been well if 
it had been left at that. But then came L. G.'s speech, 
which took everybody's breath away. 

I thought that X might know why Rosen was so dis- 
liked. He only knew that he was mistrusted and mentioned 
Tangiers without alluding to any particular incident. At 
The Hague the trouble was over a question of precedence, 
Rosen having become the doyen owing to the war. It was 
with such futilities that some diplomacy concerned itself. 

What a strange experience all this has been ! — London, 
Paris, Rome, Athens; then Rome, Paris, and London again; 
the Conference; Paris, Cologne, Diisseldorf, Berlin, Oppela 
and Upper Silesia, Breslau, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Bu- 
dapest, Paris once more, Mayence, Wiesbaden, Coblenz, 
Frankfurt, Berlin, and now Paris and London again. What 
a kaleidoscope of scenes, places, events, people, and things ! 
If only I can complete the series by Bucharest, Transyl- 
vania, and Sofia, I shall have done the bulk, and can then 
complete at leisure Poland and Jugo-Slavia which are not 
quite ready to be visited yet, and the western fringe of 
Europe, that is, the full cycle of modern post-war Europe. 
Many people will know their own corners better than I, 
but one must visit every seat of government and see all 
the leading men in order to judge the whole enchaining of 
circumstances and the relation of the various parts to the 
whole. I am constantly reminded of my old experiences in 
campaigns and manoeuvres when I have gone round and 



284 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

have found people obsessed by their own h'ttle battle and 
quite ignorant of what was happening a few miles off. So 
it really is in diplomacy and foreign polities. The lookers-on 
see most of the game. 

London, July 6, 1921. Three weeks of perfect weather 
and still more perfect company at home, and now I am off 
again to the East of Europe to complete my tour. We have 
got through the coal strike at long last and efforts are being 
made to make peace with the Sinn Feiners, so possibly 
home troubles may be sufficiently mitigated to enable us to 
pay more attention to the Near East, where the situation 
has grown worse on account of our weak policy towards 
Turks and Greeks. The position has worked out as it was 
bound to have worked out when France and Italy backed 
the Kemalists, and we feebly gave way to them and failed 
to help our natural allies, the Greeks. Now the latter have 
evacuated Ismid to concentrate their forces, and the Kemal- 
ists are profiting by their absence. There are 160,000 Rus- 
sians of Wrangel's and Denikin's armies scattered about at 
Constantinople, in Egypt, in Serbia, and a plot by these 
gentry to murder Harington has just been detected. These 
Russians, being in a state of despair and destitution, are 
ripe for mischief, while Bulgarian plots have been re- 
counted by the D. T. and the Kemalists allied themselves 
with Soviet Russia on March 16, and have since been in 
touch with them. There is a question of Roumania sending 
troops to Constantinople to help the weak Allied forces 
there. Sforza is out of office in Italy by reason of Giolitti's 
resignation after a vote which displayed lack of confidence 
in Italy's foreign policy. Philippe Berthelot is also in a diffi- 
cult position by reason of his brother's connection with the 
now fallen Banque Industrielle de Chine. These two men 
were the great supporters of the pro-Kemalist policy of 
France and Italy, which has always been against sense. 
Where is the promised Turkish barrier against Bolshevism 
now? Barrier and Bolshevism are allied! All this comes 
from the Allied failure to insist on the ratification of the 
Sevres Treaty and from our failure to take a strong line 



OFF TO ROUMANIA 285 

in a quarter of the world where our interests were] much 
engaged. 

Vienna, Sunday, July 10, 1921. Arrived here last night 
via Carlsruhe and Munich after various unpleasant worries 
with the German passport people who turned several of us 
out of the through wagon-lit for Bucharest at Kehl at 4.30 
A.M., on the pretext that we had insufficient visas. With 
difficulty we kept our hands off the chief offender. This 
happens every day at Kehl, it seems. The result was that 
the train went on without us, and that I have lost three 
days. However, I saw a few people at Munich, and came 
by day through the beautiful scenery of Southern or Alpine 
Bavaria, which exudes riches and comfort, and where the 
crops look splendid and the pastures are greener than any- 
where else in Europe. The Bavarian Tyrol must be a 
charming place for a motor tour. In general I found that 
the Bavarians frankly admit that they lost the war, and are 
not bothering much about the reasons why they lost it. 
The Einwohnerwehr have given up their arms with reluc- 
tance, but admit that the vast extension of the movement 
was an error. They had suffered so much in Munich from 
the Spartacists that when the Einwohnerwehr was started, 
every patriotic burgher joined, whereas what was needed 
was only a small special constabulary in groups of twenty 
to thirty men. The larger movement naturally looked to 
the Allies like a new and camouflaged army. As I reached 
Munich there came the news that the French had boy- 
cotted the High Court at Leipzig, where the German war 
criminals are being tried, owing to the release of the worst 
offenders, and that the Ruhr sanction is up once more. This 
makes the Bavarians mad, and they openly tell me at Mu- 
nich that they hate the French so much that every man will 
march against them if he can only provide himself with a 
stick. Ought not this situation to have been foreseen .f^ How 
could we expect that which is justice in French eyes out of 
German courts and procedure? As things stand, the worst 
culprits get off and a few wretched underlings get short 
sentences. 



286 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

Respecting the Tyrol I find that the Germans are taking 
no action, at least outwardly. Their view is that this 
matter of the Anschluss will settle itself by the natural 
force of circumstances, and that any overt action by Ger- 
many now will rather prejudice the case than promote it. 
A wise decision from their point of view, but unless we can 
induce statesmen to deal with Austria on big lines, we 
shall have to make our political book on the basis of an 
eventual reversion of Austria to Germany. 

This morning I went the rounds to see who was here and 
found that nearly all my friends and cronies were holiday- 
making, and no blame to them in this torrid heat. But 
Bundeskanzler Schober is at his post of duty, and Dr. Hertz 
is here too; I shall see them both to-morrow. Between 
them they can tell me all that I want to know. Lunched 
at Sacher's, and found it stuffy. 

In the afternoon there was a great fete, called a Trach- 
tenfestzug, to help the children. Deputations from all the 
Provinces assembled at the Rathaus in their provincial cos- 
tumes and then formed a great procession, men and women, 
horses and decorated carts. There was every kind of queer 
device representing episodes in history, keepers hauling 
poachers to prison, men threshing, a sort of local Bacchus 
carousing, riders cracking great stock-whips, the noise of 
which sounded like a machine gun in action; heaps of women 
and girls, all very gay, riding, driving, and walking, some 
two and two with their swains — a long procession through 
the Ring Strasse and into the Prater. The crowds on both 
sides of the road quite thick and the windows well filled. 
These people have certainly the capacity for enjoyment. 
It was interesting to see all the local costumes, and as each 
Province was preceded by a flag or notice board with its 
name, it was easy to see who they all were. 

I thought it a clever idea to unite all the Provinces at the 
Capital, as the fissiparous tendencies of this country must 
be arrested. I was particularly interested to notice that 
five-sevenths of the costumes were those of mountaineers. 
One might have expected it from the agricultural statistics, 



AUSTRIA'S MOUNTAINEERS 287 

which show that tw^o-thirds of the pasture land is Alpine, 
but here w as the visible proof. It might have been all Tyrol 
so far as the men's and women's dresses were concerned, but 
I did not notice the Vorarlberg little black conical hat, to 
my regret. There were large straw hats with immense brims, 
from Carinthia, I think, and some of the dresses were quite 
pretty. The men were great bucks, mostly in shorts or 
knickers with stockings below the knee, shooting-boots, a 
light coat, and the Tyrolese or some other very similar 
head-dress; occasionally this was made of long feathers 
with foxes' tails dangling on each side. A likely-looking 
lot, mostly armed with sporting rifles, carried slung, and 
the women were strapping, upstanding wenches with a 
great look of health, and many pretty. The cries uttered 
were ear-piercing, and were often taken up by the crowd. 
There was no conventional yodling. A sort of running con- 
versation went on between the procession and the crowd, 
and there was an endless waving of handkerchiefs and 
much good fooling. There seemed to be a jester with every 
deputation. In fact it was more like an English fifteenth- 
century show than anything else. The spirit was that of 
the Canterbury Pilgrim Tales. 

It takes a German couple, however, to walk fifteen miles 
through crowded streets, holding hands all the way in this 
sweltering heat. I have not seen any people so festive since 
the war began. The Vienna crowd was very good-humoured 
and out for pleasure. There was no denying the military 
training of the armed bodies of mountaineers. They had 
Kaiser- Jager written all over them. If L. G. had seen this 
show, he would no longer have thought it of no importance 
that Austria should go to Germany. I had no idea that I 
should see anything so interesting, or so instructive. It is 
good to see the spirit of nationality returning, even if each 
Province keeps its old customs, and is a bit more independ- 
ent than the Central Government here like. In all serious- 
Qess one must remember that Schwaben and Ober-Bayern, 
Salzburg, Steiermark, Tyrol, Vorarlberg, and Carinthia pro- 
duce as good and hardy races of mountaineers as there are 



288 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

in the world, and that all these people are Germans and wil! 
never be anything else. Nor will the Germans of what the 
Germans call German South Tyrol, now in Italian hands. 
They are a bit elementary, too, all these people, and will 
be a tough proposition to tackle in their native hills. I do 
not believe that the theories of our modern illuminSs have 
touched the surface of this crowd. That is our fault, per- 
haps. We legislate or dream for a little circle of Western 
intellectuals while the mass of the people think in much 
simpler terms. 

Vienna, Monday, July 11, 1921. Dr. Masirevitch, the 
Hungarian Minister here, gave me a diplomatic visa for 
my journey to-morrow. He talked of Hungary's troubles, 
and told me that some of the parties were assailing Horthy 
now, some because he was not Socialistic enough and 
others because he kept too great state, or that they wanted 
King Karl back. But, as M. truly said, no one would gain 
from Horthy going. He told me that the persecutions of 
the Magyars in Transylvania continue and that a Baroness 
Banff y had recently been bastinadoed. I asked where — 
meaning geographically — and he said, "on that part of 
the body traditionally reserved for the bastinado." I said 
that I should make inquiries. She belonged, he said, to the 
family of the Hungarian Foreign Minister. 

The Bundeskanzler had a diplomatic reception at the 
Ballhaus Platz from eleven to one, and received me after 
the Nuncio had been in. Herr Schober the same as ever, 
cool, calm, and self-contained. I congratulated him on 
rising to the highest place in the Government, and said 
that it seemed to me that sense of duty had outweighed all 
other considerations with him. He had had a secure and 
popular post and now he was the predestined sport for in- 
triguers. S. admitted that it had been a sacrifice, but if 
only the credits were granted by the League of Nations 
Commission he thought that Austria's position would 
steadily mend. He said that Italy's abandonment of the 
lien on Austrian resources was not yet final. Nor is that of 
Jugo-Slavia. He asked what my view was, and I said that 



TALK WITH CHANCELLOR SCHOBER 289 

I was for the proposed credits. He seemed rather surprised, 
and asked if I really was. I said, "Certainly, it is the only 
way to prevent Austria from breaking up, and I had been 
in favour of Sir W. Goode's proposals too, which I thought 
were even better." L. G. had upset that apple cart, but 
L. G. could never tackle foreign politics closely when he 
was beset by internal troubles. Now things looked like 
clearing and then I hoped we might have an Austrian pol- 
icy at last. 

Had he read, I asked. Count Ottokar Czernin's article 
in the Wiener Sonn- und Monntag's-Zeitung of to-day on 
Austrian diplomacy? Was it all as bad as Czernin alleged.'* 
Schober — who is Foreign Minister as well as Chancellor — 
said it was not. He was quite satisfied with his representa- 
tives abroad. He found it perfectly easy to do the two jobs 
and the criticisms of Czernin on this point were not justi- 
fied. He had seen Czernin only yesterday, and C. had said 
nothing about his coming article. He would see him again 
and have it out with him. But Czernin counts for little 
now. S.'s secretary had told me that he was not rated 
high, and I had replied that his book alone condemned 
him. 

I then asked the Chancellor to tell me how the relations 
with the Provinces were getting on, whether there was any 
increase in the authority of the Central Government, 
whether he was reforming the Army, and how the An- 
schluss position now stood. He said that the relations with 
the Provinces had greatly improved. He had taken the 
initiative in getting into touch with them, and as soon as he 
was installed had written to them all a very frank letter 
saying that the State could only exist through the Prov- 
inces, and the latter through the State. He had told them 
that Vienna alone could supply them with the funds they 
needed for various reforms, and had made it clear that un- 
less they played the game he would not retain office. It 
was probably a good letter, as S. is a man of great good 
sense, who inspires general respect, and the Provinces had 
all rephed in very amicable fashion. He had further 



290 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

promised to go round and see them all on the first oppor- 
tunity. This is all a good move. 

As to the Army, the faults of which S. knows well, he 
was reducing its numbers and improving its quality. "As 
you did your fine Police," I remarked. Yes, he said, and 
he had his own man now at the head of the Army and things 
would get on. As for the Anschluss, he said that he hoped 
the phase of plebiscites was over. He had assembled the 
Great-German Party, and had plainly told them that gov- 
ernment was impossible if they continued their propaganda 
and that he would sooner go now than later, if they would 
not give him an undertaking to be quiet. This they seem to 
have done, and if they keep their promise a great diffi- 
culty is removed. It will not alter facts, but will stop this 
dangerous diplomatic tension which made the Austrian 
Government look so contemptible. 

I asked about Bulgaria. S. has no Minister at Sofia, and 
so did not know what was happening, but had wired to the 
Dutch Minister, who was looking after Austrian interests 
in Bulgaria, and expected a reply soon. The Bulgarian 
Minister here had stoutly denied the alleged intrigues 
with the ex-Tsar Ferdinand, and we both thought a rising 
of the peasants, yesterday reported from Bulgaria, to be 
most unlikely ^ with a peasant Government in office. The 
Bulgarian Minister had even gone so far on behalf of his 
Government as to ask Schober to forbid the entry of Fer- 
dinand into Austria, and this had been done. 

*'If only we are left alone and are given our credits, the 
country will make progress and become viable," said S. 
He evidently has doubts about England's good-will in the 
matter, and meanwhile the crown has gone to the terrible 
figure of 2745 to the pound sterling, and prices here are 
no easier than they were. Coal is coming in again from 
Czecho-Slovakia, but to nothing like the amount needed. 
As for bread, the old prices and difficulties remain, but a 
law is in preparation to make rich people pay the full cost 
of the loaf, and others less than the full price, according 

* There was not one word of txuth in it. 



TALK WITH CHANCELLOR SCHOBER 291 

to their means. This will improve the situation to some 
extent, if the plan prove practicable, but a total abolition 
of the bread subsidy is not yet in sight. 

1 asked about the customs and whether he had seen 
Benes and had any negotiations with him. Schober said 
that he had not, but would like to meet him. Meanwhile 
he had toid his Ministry that Austria should not await pro- 
posals, but should make them herself. It was better for her 
to remove her own customs barriers, even if the neigh- 
bouring States did nothing. I told him that I thought both 
Benes and Banffy would meet him halfway if he set to work. 
We had a talk about the show yesterday and of other mat- 
ters, after which I took leave of him, and he asked me to be 
sure to call and see him again if I stopped in Vienna on my 
return. He told me that he was sending Mensdorff to the 
League of Nations and that M. had only agreed to go if S. 
would defend him in Parliament which S. had promised 
to do. 

I like Schober. He is the right type for the situation 
and commands general confidence. He has measure and 
experience with sound judgement, weighs his words, is not 
pompous, and seems very frank. I think that he is genuine 
and can be trusted. If he can get the Provinces to back 
him, I do not see why he should not remain, but Austrian 
politics are too shifty to permit of undue optimism. 

In the late afternoon met Dr. Hertz at last, at an after- 
noon meeting of the League of Nations at my hotel, and 
was introduced to a number of League enthusiasts, not- 
ably Mrs. Philip Snowden, a pleasant, capable woman, 
who eulogised my War Diary, and is a fine speaker. Miss 
Marshall, who spoke capitally; Herr Dernburg, the well- 
known German Reichstag member, and his boy who is 
studying philosophy at Berne; Mme. Griinberger, wife of 
the Food Minister here; Mme. Hertz, Dr. Raditch, whom 
I missed when I was here before, and various others. 
Hertz came up to my rooms first and we had a little quiet 
talk. He approves of Schober, like others, but fancies that 
there may be an election in the autumn, and that after- 



292 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

wards the two strong parties may combine. He thinks that 
things continue to improve here, and although he admits 
the imjxjrtance of the half-promised credits, he rates even 
higher the importance of clearing the decks of all the lum- 
ber of the Peace Treaties, and of giving Austria a taJbida 
more or less rasa to work upon. It is the uncertainty of 
the future that hurts Austria most, and he says that for- 
eign bankers would put down all the money needed if the 
situation were cleared up for good and all, and if there were 
no more talk of making Austria pay reparations if she re- 
covered twenty years hence. He says that the Austrian 
banks are doing a vast business, and that hundreds of new 
banks have been started, but that it is largely fictitious 
business, and produces nothing, for the profits made come 
out of the people's incomes and help to paralyse European 
trade. We talked the whole situation over. 

Dernburg is not a very attractive personage. His chief 
contribution to our brief talk was that Germany could pay 
in gold marks, but that the conversion of 132 milliards into 
another currency was impracticable. America had jibbed 
at the last conversion into dollars and the City of London 
would do the same if the conversion into sterling were 
attempted. 

During my meal before leaving Vienna, Dr. Hertz came 
up again and we had some talk. I told him that all this 
part of Europe would never get on until some form of free 
trade were adopted, as all these little States were ruining 
themselves and each other by their tariffs. Hertz did not 
dissent, but thought that the whole trend at present was 
for States to impose higher duties to prevent Germany 
from swamping their markets with her goods. Even coun- 
tries like Spain, Switzerland, and Holland were joining in 
the movement. This made exclusive action by a more 
or less dependent State like Austria very difficult. He 
thought Austria had become a sort of colony among the 
Succession States. But whereas England would not cut 
off supplies from Jamaica as a reprisal, this was practically 
done to Austria by her former Provinces. 



THE SITUATION IN AUSTRIA 293 

Hertz told me a curious story of the war which had just 
come out from an examination of the Austrian archives, 
and it was as much news to him as it was to me. It was a 
well-known fact how well-informed Austria had been dur- 
ing the war, and the reason had only now appeared. It 
seems that the Italian Ambassador at Petrograd, being 
unable to advise his Government by the telegraph, was 
given the use of the Russian wireless every day and sent 
detailed reports of everything that was happening, includ- 
ing strengths and disposition of Allied troops. He sent 
them, of course, in cipher. But when Italy entered the war 
she had published a Red Book to defend her action. Owing 
to inexcusable oversight the telegrams published were 
not paraphrased, but were word for word as sent. The 
Austrians had kept the tapes with the Italian cipher 
messages, and the Red Book enabled them to discover the 
Italian cipher. So all through the war while the Russian 
wireless was utilisable, the Austrians read everything 
that came over it and obtained great credit for wonderful 
intelligence. Hertz thought that the successes of the 
German command assumed a different aspect in the light 
of this exposure, particularly the success against Serbia 
during which the strength and positions of all the Serbian 
forces became exactly known. Occasionally the informa- 
tion was wrong, as when the presence of a turning column 
round a German flank was inaccurately reported. The 
German General stopped his attack and threw back a 
wing to meet the column which was non-existent, and so 
failed to win a big success. One will need confirmation of 
this story from the Italian side, especially information 
concerning the Red Book messages, and an explanation 
whether the same cipher was used all through the war or 
not. It might have been so used owing to the time and un- 
certainty connected with the despatch of a fresh cipher to 
Russia, but the story, if true, is a fresh warning of the 
double-edged character of wireless in war, and shows 
clearly what precautions are required. 

Left 11.45 P.M. 



294 BERLIN AND VIENNA 

In the train to Bucharest, Tuesday, July 12, 1921. Med- 
itating over Austrian matters including various data 
collected yesterday for reading en route. The contradic- 
tion, which I remarked in April, between the almost bank- 
ruptcy of the Austrian State and the growth of private 
profits has become still more glaring after the lapse of 
three months, and the publication of more statistics of 
trade, customs, bank profits, etc. Both exports and im- 
ports have gone up, but coal accounts, in weight, for two- 
thirds of all imports in 1920, and foods for a large part 
more. Czecho-Slovakia and Germany remain Austria's 
best clients, delivering forty -five per cent of Austria's im- 
ports between them. England sends goods of only 144,600 
cwt., and takes only 50,000 cwt., while America, under hard- 
er conditions of distance, sent 2,900,000 cwt. With all the 
great activities of Austrian business, it is not satisfactory 
that we are left in the lurch like this. I think that Austria 
is moving more rapidly on the Benes lines than other 
States round. Austrian customs officials may now grant 
licences for imports of large classes of goods without special 
application, and I am much struck by the opinion of the 
Special Commission of the iron industry, in which agri- 
culture and labour took part, that Austria's industry 
being dependent on exports, a protectionist customs policy 
did not suit her. This may have been in the Bundeskanz- 
ler's mind when he spoke to me. 

However, the horrible fact remains, and is confirmed by 
the Budget for the second half of 1921, that the revenue 
is 24.1 milliards of Austrian crowns and the expenditure 
49.5 milliards, or a deficit of 25.4 milliards. Only a third 
of the expenditure is met out of revenue. As before, the 
main causes of the deficit are the food subsidies, 10.3 mil- 
liards, the service of the debt, loss on railways, and the 
necessarily increased salaries of officials who can barely 
live now, as they are paid but half the wages of skilled 
workmen. The bed-rock fact remains that Versailles cre- 
ated a State and deprived it of the means of existence. 
Whether the mistake was due to malice or ignorance is no 
matter now. 



THE LEAGUE'S FINANCIAL PLAN 295 

Will the plan of the Finance Committee of the League 
of Nations secure acceptance by the Powers and will it be 
effective? I do not feel sure. There has been no suggestion 
yet how to end the Budget deficit, though Austria has done 
much by raising her revenue sixty-three per cent above the 
previous half-year, and by doubling receipts from income 
tax. Customs duties have also been doubled. The Com- 
mittee fusses about the currency reform, but it is the 
Budget deficits and the stopping of the printing-press that 
should be taken in hand first through foreign credits and 
internal loans combined. Currency reform is necessary, 
but all the world must share in it. 

If relief action is not applied here, all the rest is financial 
dilettantism. The Committee puts the cart before the 
horse. Sir W. Goode was wiser and more practical. The 
crown has steadily lost ground from the moment that the 
League of Nations plan came out. It is also indefinite as 
to time and amounts of help from outside, and to ask for 
control of Austrian finances while the Committee seems 
prepared to do little to help is rather absurd. 

However, Austria continues to hope, and her private 
business continues to develop. There is great activity. 
Everybody is busy doing or trying to do something. The 
bank profits are large and branches are being started every- 
where in the Provinces. Styria promises well in coal and 
mineral oil at workable depths. Many companies pay 
good dividends. New ventures are constantly being under- 
taken. The hotels give us a hot bath every day in the week 
except Sundays, and white bread has returned at last, 
though not yet for the ration bread. Vienna holds her 
own. Her grandeur and her charms are enhanced by the 
fact that she is so adaptable, that she is the gateway of the 
East, that her railway network is first-rate, and that her 
great banking competence attracts clients from all sides. 
Vienna is genial and broad-minded in pleasure as in busi- 
ness, and I do not think that any of these self-isolating, 
ultra-nationalist States around can take her crown of use- 
fulness from her. 



CHAPTER XI 

NEW ROUMANIA 

Country and crops — A first talk with M, Take Jonescu — Summer nights 
in Bucharest — Mr. Millington Drake — Mr. Peter A. Jay and Colonel 
Poillon, U.S.A. — People to see — An audience with the King of Roumania 

— A talk on current affairs — The question of Transylvania — MM. Jaco- 
vaky and Grigori Jon — Complaints of Bulgaria — Bucharest architecture 

— The butterflies — Roumanian statistics — M. Filaleki on Russia — The 
opposition on strike — Views of M. Nedkov, the Bulgarian Minister — An- 
swers to Roumanian charges — A conversation with the Prime Minister, 
General Avarescu — His account of 1916 — His views on the Straits — A 
talk with M. Goga — Religions in Transylvania — Roimianian resources — 
Wheat, maize, and timber — Foreign capital — Industrial concerns — Rail- 
ways — Foreign trade — Banks — Public finance — Public debt — A talk 
with General Nikoleanu on the police — Mme. Lahovary on the agrarian 
reforms — A talk with the Minister of Communications — A talk with the 
General Stafif — General Gorski and Colonel Palada — The strength and 
distribution of the Soviet armies — More complaints of Bidgaria — A con- 
versation with the War Minister, General Rascano — Roumanian Army 
organization — M. Garoflid, Minister of Domains, on the agrarian laws — 
Colonel Dundas — Consul Keyser — Mr. Guest on the oil industry — A 
dinner at the Take Jonescus — The Foreign Minister on Roumanian policy 

— Mr. Alexander Adams — The Decree Laws — An investigation at the 
Roumanian Foreign Office — The complaints about Bulgaria — The oil 
industry — Statistics and observations — Trammels of the industry — The 
export tax — Astra-Romana and Steaua-Romana — Mr. Charles Spencer 
on the future of our trade — By motor to the Danube. 

Wednesday, July 13,1921. A piping hot journey yesterday, 
more like India than Europe. The Magyar customs sub- 
ordinates at Vienna were perfect boors, threw and tumbled 
things about and made themselves as unpleasant as they 
could. Reached Budapest about 8 a.m. and the Roumanian 
frontier at Curtici at 3.30 p.m. 

The corn is mostly cut. As we travelled east the ricks 
were already made. Nearly all the reaping by hand. I did 
not notice a single modern agricultural machine; neither 
reaper and binder, nor anything else. There must be a big 
opening for these things in Eastern Europe. In general, 
the cultivation is in strips and patches, denoting a peasant 
proprietorship and a division of the land. Am not sure that 
this will help wheat export. 



TALK WITH M. TAKE JONESCU 297 

We reached the valley of the Maros — they pronounce 
it Muroche — soon after passing Arad. A broad valley, 
highly cultivated, bordered by hills and woods, with a 
winding river as broad as the Thames at Maidenhead. 
Through the night into Transylvania and climbed the Alps 
about dawn by the Predeal Pass. Very beautiful, both 
gaunt and wooded peaks, with masses of wild flowers in the 
clearings and valleys, the houses built chalet fashion, of 
wood with balconies for each floor. The streams were 
fairly full and there must have been recent rain. 

We passed fashionable Sinaia about nine and reached 
Bucharest at noon. Dering is away, but Millington Drake, 
the First Secretary, sent his car for me and recommended a 
lodging which I found miles better than the hotel, and so 
put up there. We passed to-day through the Ploesti oil 
area where there was much activity both at the wells and 
the refineries. 

I went to the Legation to thank Millington Drake for his 
kindness and afterwards had a talk with M. Take Jonescu, 
the famous Foreign Minister, at his house. I have come 
here at an interesting moment, for to-day the Treaty with 
Jugo-Slavia is published and it has the definite and ex- 
pressed aim of keeping Hungary and Bulgaria quiet. T. J. 
made a long speech on it and on other foreign affairs on 
Saturday last. I hastily scanned both before seeing T. J. 
Our talk covered the Treaty, the complaints of the Tran- 
sylvanian Magyars, Austria, the intrigues of Stamboulisky, 
the Russian question, free trade in Eastern Europe, the 
agrarian laws, and other matters. There is not much to 
be said about the Treaty, as the text is clear, but the mili- 
tary convention which issues from it will not be published, 
and this seems to follow the precedent set by France and 
Belgium on the military side. T. J. had the report of the 
Unitarian padres on his table, so he must realise its weight, 
I said that I wanted the Roumanian answer to it. T. J. 
said it was full of inaccuracies, and besides said that it was 
impracticable for Roumania to do everything in a hurry. 
I shall have to keep T. J. up to giving me the necessary 



298 NEW ROUMANIA 

reply, but as we are to meet again I did not dwell longer on 
this subject. T. J. is very suspicious of Stamboulisky, as 
he says that S. has tried a feeler with Roumania, and then 
with Jugo-Slavia, and has now sent the mission to Kemal 
because there was no one left to intrigue with but the So- 
viet and the Turks. T. J. thought that Bulgaria was out for 
revenge. S. was inordinately vain. S. had flattered T. J. 
more than the latter had ever been flattered in his life and 
he was rather sarcastic about it. He had told S. that 
Roumania was not going to have the Treaty of Neuilly 
upset. But three times a week he still received love-let- 
ters from Stamboulisky, and I said that I could not under- 
stand S.'s attitude, as the Little Entente made it imprac- 
ticable for Bulgaria to move without being overwhelmed. 
We do not seem to possess the key of S.'s intrigues yet. 
T. J. said that Ferdinand constantly wrote i to his son 
lauding S. to the skies, and the son showed the letters to S. 
T. J. thought that Ferdinand wanted to come back. I re- 
plied that I could not conceive why. Coburg was a much 
more pleasant retreat than Sofia. T. J. was not sure about 
Schober; he appears to me a little jealous of all the other 
Eastern Europe diplomatists, and I judge that most of the 
accusations against Bulgaria have reached London from 
T. J. Does he too enjoy the lime-light .^^ He was slightly 
sarcastic about our trade agreement with Russia and did 
not expect that we should get much out of it. I said, Yes, 
we have a trade agreement, and no trade. I said that I 
wanted his views on Russia and would like to talk to those 
who knew most about it. T. J. said it was an error to sup- 
pose that Roumania's propinquity brought her any better 
information about Russia than came to other States. Such 
as his news was, it told of famine and persecutions. But 
the frontier was hermetically sealed and no really good news 
came over. Surely, I said, there must be infiltration across 
the frontier. He admitted that there was a little, but it 
only brought local news from just over the border and 
nothing of real value to enable him to estimate the future. 

^ See King Boris's denial, entry for July 29. 



TALK WITH M. TAKE JONESCU 299 

He admitted that he did not expect anything from Russia 
in our time, but also said that Russia was a strange country 
and that no one understood her. 

He does not think anything like free trade in Eastern 
Europe is practicable. I imagine that he will block the 
Benes ideas if he can, but I expected nothing else from 
Roumania. I realise why Benes gave ten years as the period 
for carrying out his plan. I asked him about the new agra- 
rian laws. Was the compensation to expropriated landlords 
to be really forty years' purchase.^^ How could the State 
find the money .^ How could he find the farmers.f^ Would 
not the amount and quality of production greatly diminish.'* 
Yes, it would, replied T. J., but the division of land was a 
social necessity and the men had been placed on the land 
by a Decree Law before the laws were passed by Parlia- 
ment. There were three agrarian laws, one made by Bes- 
sarabia for herself, one for the old Monarchy, and one for 
Transylvania. The calm and unity of the country was due 
to these laws, and without them there would have been 
Communism and Bolshevism. As things were, he had ob- 
tained, as I had seen, a unanimous vote for his last Treaty 
and the country was contented. The forty years' purchase 
meant little, for the amount was based on pre-war valu- 
ation, and, in view of subsequent loss on the valuation, an 
owner really received only one-quarter of the value of his 
land at the date when the valuation was made. "Do you 
call that justice.'*" I asked. It was a social necessity, he 
repeated. There would be no great difference between the 
Transylvanian laws and the others. We talked general 
politics a bit, and he laid stress on the different policies 
incumbent on victors and on vanquished. Dined with the 
Millington Drakes at the Chateaubriand. A boiling hot 
night. The dogs made too much noise for sleep. 

Thursday, July 14, 1921. The dogs barked till 4 a.m. 
The cocks crowed all night and sounded a general reveille 
at 3. There was a diocesan conference of sparrows at 4.30 
A.M. At 5.30 there concentrated three Army Corps of flies 
in my room. Then the street cries began. One must do in 



300 NEW ROUMANIA 

Roumania as the Roumanians do: Rise at 6. Work till 1. 
Remain in a comatose state after lunch till 5, when people 
reappear at their offices, see j)eople till 7, and dine in the 
open somewhere about 9 or 9.30 p.m. It is India without 
Indian compensations against the heat. Won't come here 
again at this time of year. 

Lunched with the Millington Drakes — she is a pretty 
woman, daughter of Lord Inchcape — Mr. Jay, the U.S. 
Minister, Mrs. Devereux, who is travelling 'round to write 
another book, and a King's Messenger — at the Jockey 
Club. Dined at the Chateaubriand Restaurant in the 
open. Mr. Peter A. Jay and the Poillons dined with me. 
Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Poillon pronounces his name 
Polion, but of course the French do not. She is a very 
agreeable lady. We had much talk to-day of the Rou- 
manians and their affairs. I do not gather that the 
foreign missions here are wildly in love with the Rouman- 
ians. Such cases as the Reschitsa affair, which is making a 
great scandal in Parliament, are much too common, and 
in fact this country has not got into its stride adminis- 
tratively and is very far from being immaculate or efficient. 
But on the whole, when one recalls that these people were 
almost in subjection up to 1866, and when one considers all 
that they have been through since, especially in the war, 
and of the recent doubling of the size of the country, in 
which there was not even personnel enough to run the old 
Monarchy, one must be lenient. But we must have it out 
about the treatment of minorities, as this is a matter of 
good-will and principle. Mrs. D. has just been staying with 
Baroness Banffy, and says it is true that she was beaten, 
but she did not lay claim to the reported bastinado ! I sus- 
pect she was aggressive and was just a little hustled. She 
says that the report of the Unitarian padres is absolutely 
accurate. At Chateaubriand's, which is a sort of Chateau 
de Madrid of Bucharest, we had quite an agreeable dinner 
and the three Americans were very pleasant and enter- 
taining. I was much amused, and almost consoled, to find 
that the German bandit of the Kehl customs had treated 



MR. JAY AND COLONEL POILLON 301 

the Poillons as he had treated me and had bundled them 
out of the train at 4 a.m. too, though Poillon is MiHtary 
Attache, and was on an official mission, and had a laissez- 
passer. He is furious about it still, especially as he was 
carrying a lot of his Embassy bags which had to go on by 
themselves ! We had a good talk. Jay has only just arrived 
here. Poillon has been here a year, and though he admits 
Roumania's potential wealth, he thinks Mexico is richer, 
and he would rather put his money into the latter country, 
as one day or other the United States will have to regulate 
her proceedings. Got home quite late. Another broiling 
night. The street cries are as numerous as those which 
Wheatley recorded of old London. A really charming 
place for insomnia. A damp, enervating, orchid-house heat, 
and no cooler at night. 

Friday, July 15, 1921. Went to the P.O. in the morning 
to talk with the Directeur du Protocole, M. Alexandre N. 
Jacovaky. Told him of the people I wanted to see and the 
things I wanted to know, and he was most helpful. I must 
see the Minister of Finance, M. Titulescu, about public 
finance; Delyanu, Secretary-General of General Avarescu, 
about trade and oil; General Valiano about railways; 
Filaleki about Russian affairs (he is intended for Minister 
at Warsaw); General Rascano about the Army; M. Groja, 
or M. Goga, about the Government of Transylvania, and 
General Nikoleanu about the Police. 

I have to ask Avarescu to request these people to see me, 
by the Secretary -General Chrenichavo. A good many Gen- 
erals appear to be in charge of departments under Avarescu. 
Went with Millington Drake to Avarescu 's Bureau on the 
chance of seeing him. Drake has to tell him something 
rather stiff, as he said that the Roumanian Government had 
let us down about something. I did not ask what it was. 
We were both fobbed off, and promised appointments 
by telephone. The Secretary-General talked to us while 
we waited. I asked him whether the President of the Coun- 
cil here stood in the same position towards the other Min- 
isters as the P.M. usually does in England. It seems that he 



302 NEW ROUMANIA 

is a real chief, and can dismiss any Minister when he pleases. 
But as a matter of courtesy he usually consults his col- 
leagues first. We were also told that the agrarian law had 
been altered at the last minute in the Lower House, and 
that the indemnities to dispossessed landlords were now to 
be paid half by the new peasant proprietors and half by 
war profiteers. I thought this was rather a good joke, but 
asked how they could be sure that the profiteers would 
stump up. The Government had certain rough statistics 
which showed that they could, we were told. The consti- 
tution has to be changed, and there is a regular procedure 
laid down for such changes. So a modern constitution does 
not resemble that of Medes or Persians. Then we were 
also told of a new law which compels all officials — including 
M.P.'s — to justify their income, i.e., to show whence it 
comes. If they cannot justify it, they are to be deprived 
of eighty-two per cent of it, this figure being fixed merely 
to avoid total confiscation, which is not permitted by the 
constitution. Great fun if this law were passed at home, 
but I should say that culprits could easily get round this 
new law, and send their ill-gotten gains abroad. They have 
only to buy cheques on London. However, it is a step in 
the right direction, and a proof of good intentions. 

Went to have an audience of the King at the Palace, 
4.30 P.M., and we talked for an hour and a half about Tran- 
sylvania and the Hungarians, Monarchy and the state of 
Europe, sport in Roumania, the King's cure, personalities in 
Europe, Russia, the agrarian law, Lloyd George, the war 
in Asia Minor, Constantinople, the Allied representatives at 
Athens, the Queen's writings, Bulgaria, and many other sub- 
jects. They have in mind my visit to Hungary and my ar- 
ticles on that country. The King began on my visit there at 
once, and I told him frankly that I liked the Hungarians, 
and that they were English in their point of view, and that 
the directing class mostly spoke English. They had been 
harshly treated, but now had made an end of their propa- 
ganda in Transylvania, and I hoped that the King would 
meet them halfway. Benes had adumbrated to me some 



I 



AUDIENCE WITH THE KING 303 

sort of reconciliation with the Magyars on his side, I told 
him, and perhaps H.M. would be able to make some con- 
cessions to them also for the sake of peace. 

The King said that the propaganda had only been 
stopped officially and evidently thinks that it continued 
unofficially. He must insist that the Treaty should be 
loyally accepted first of all, for otherwise it was an impos- 
sible situation. He could not grant special advantages to 
Transylvania. To constitute the new kingdom solidly he 
had to lay down a common principle for all State services, 
such as posts, army, gendarmerie, etc., and if this was not 
done at once it could not easily be done later. The Magyars 
made all sorts of difficulties. They had even received their 
regulations in the Hungarian schools in Transylvania from 
Budapest, and he could not admit such interference from 
outside. He, too, liked the Hungarians, and wanted the 
best elements to remain, as they would have a good in- 
fluence. All the Bishops, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protes- 
tant, had come to swear allegiance. He had told one par- 
ticularly distinguished Magyar prelate, who was a great 
nationalist, that he trusted him because he was a Bishop 
and a gentleman. All troubles would end if the Magyars 
would cease their intrigues against the State. He said that 
the report of the Unitarian padres was full of inaccuracies. 
They had consulted only Magyar and not Roumanian 
authorities. He knew whom they had consulted. I said 
that hostile reports upon Roumanian bullying continued, 
and told him the story of Baroness Banff y and the bastinado. 
The Baroness was a fighter, he said. She had been tried, 
had pleaded her own case, and had simply said that she was 
a Hungarian and had done and would always do her duty 
towards Hungary. She was successful and was acquitted. 
The King thought this a worthy procedure on both sides 
and I agreed. The King said that he must have heard if 
anything like beating had occurred, and believed that she 
had only been a little hustled on one occasion. I told H.M. 
that nothing was more calculated to arouse fury against 
the Roumanians in England than the report that they had 



S04 NEW ROUMANIA 

beaten a woman like Baroness Banffy. Yes, or any woman, 
interposed the King. I agreed, and asked him to remember 
the case of the Austrian General — was the name Haymerle? 
— in the fifties who had whipped Polish ladies and had 
been chased and hunted in London by Barclay & Perkins's 
draymen, on his visit to that brewery. Our people would 
listen to no excuses in a case like this and would simply 
see red. The King thoroughly understood and was not 
annoyed by the plain speaking. 

We went on to the question of Monarchy in Europe. He 
thought that all the Monarchies should support each other, 
and I said that I agreed and thought Monarchies were 
more efficient than the new Republics, most of whom could 
not even form a regular parliamentary government. The 
King thought that there would be a revulsion of feeling 
soon and that Monarchies would return. I agreed and 
said that Germany and Hungary would have Monarchies 
to-morrow if they could have their way. He evidently 
fancies Rupprecht of Bavaria for the German Crown ; but 
he thought Karl's act stupid. One only took a step like 
this, he said, when one was sure of succeeding. I told him 
of the difficulties in the way of Rupprecht's return. He 
thought that France was almost as good as a Monarchy, 
as she was the most conservative country in Europe. As 
for Poland, she needed a King because of her traditions. 
** There are plenty of young Princes in Europe for the 
place," I suggested. "Yes," said the King, thumping the 
table, "but he must ^ avoir du poing.^" "Yes, a Ponia- 
towski," I said; but I admitted that I did not know the 
Prince fit to play that role. But possibly this was only my 
ignorance, as I did not run after Princes like London host- 
esses, and there might be a beau sahreur of a Prince some- 
where. 

The King said that he wanted Poland to keep Galicia 
so that it might form a barrier. 

The King talked of Bulgaria and of Stamboulisky, about 
whom he shares T. J.'s views. S., said the King, is a Bui- 
gar, looks like a bull, and talks nothing but Bulgarian. 



TALK WITH THE KING 305 

This entails a translator, and S. has Stancioff's daughter 
with him, a nice clever girl.^ "Oh!" I said. "Why do you 
say, Oh?" "Because I see better where Stancioff comes 
in." " Yes, but I brought Nicolas Misu with me," said the 
King, "and he speaks fourteen languages, so I was quite 
secure." S., he said, thought that he had the monopoly of 
ideas which everyone possessed. He was a little Eang of 
the castle of the children's nursery rhyme. 

H.M. then discussed Constantinople, and the Turco- 
Greek war. He said that the Greeks had gained an im- 
portant success. He wondered why we had not backed the 
Greeks, why we had objected to the Greeks bringing back 
their King if they wanted to do so, and why we boycotted 
him when he was doing the job we set him to do. I said 
that I wondered too, but an allied policy was usually a 
weak compromise, and made the Foreign Ministers seem 
as feeble folk as the conies. There was some talk when I 
left England, I continued, of a Roumanian re-enforcement 
at Constantinople. The King smiled and said that he 
thought it was best for Roumania to keep out of it all. I 
fancy he did not want to share Greece's fate and be de- 
serted as she was. I laughed and said that I should be of 
the same opinion in H.M.'s place. But the King made it 
clear that he could not afford to have the Straits closed 
again, and we were both in full agreement on this point. 
The talk ranged over many other subjects. He agreed that 
the agrarian laws might reduce the wheat output, but 
hoped that in a few years things might right themselves. 
We talked of the sport in the country, especially in Tran- 
sylvania, and he told me of a drive in which fourteen bears 
had been killed, which he thought a record, I was rather 
sorry for the bears, which are good creatures and will be 
exterminated at this rate. Much talk of personalities, some 
of whom want exterminating more than the bears. 

The King seems a well-informed, kindly man. He was in 
white drill naval uniform. 

Dined in the evening at the Jockey Club with Jacovaky 

* Mile. Stanciofif has since given up this delicate r61e. 



306 NEW ROUMANIA 

and M. Grigori Jon, another F.O. man, from the Banat. 
They poured into me a stream of facts to show that the 
Roumanian administration was all it should be, and the 
Magyars perfect terrors. They beg me to go there and see 
for myself. I said that I could not afford the time now. I 
had come to have the oflScial replies to the charges and 
meant to leave it at this. Sir Willoughby Dickinson is due 
here Monday, from the British Union of the League of 
Nations, to examine into the cases of minorities and con- 
fessions, and I did not consider it my business to do this 
work unless Lord Burnham definitely so instructed me. 
I should be hrule with one side and perhaps with both if I 
did. What I wanted was definite replies to definite charges. 
I undertook to state the main charges and they undertook 
to answer them. We had a long talk till late, of all the 
affairs of this part of the world. I approved entirely of 
their views about the Straits. They will never accept 
that they shall be closed again, and on this point Roumania 
will be our firm support if she be handled properly. They 
are a trifle suspicious of the attitude of the H. of C. to- 
wards Hungary, because a few independent Members 
spoke up for her when the Treaty of Trianon was discussed, 
and the Roumanians weave this into an imaginary English 
web consisting of Hungary and Bulgaria. I tried to dispel 
these illusions. Jacovaky says that Stamboulisky behaved 
well at the Council when Ferdinand of Bulgaria raised the 
question of joining in the late war. All the Council, except 
S., said that F. knew more than they did and that they 
would follow his lead. S. alone told F. to beware, as he 
might be risking his crown. "And you might be risking 
your head," replied F. In effect S. was thrown into prison 
and remained there till the smash came, two and one-half 
years later. Only his fine physique kept him alive. But 
the old ambitions prevailed, and in two years the Bulgars 
might wish to renew their old attempts. They were Tura- 
nian or Slav according to the policy of the moment, and 
now seemed to have an idea that the Turco-Soviet alliance 
would serve their ends. I said that I had not the key of 



COMPLAINTS OF BULGARIA 307 

S.'s attitude and did not believe the Roumanians had. 
That was why I was going to Sofia to investigate. It 
seemed to me that, according to their showing, S. had a 
double dose of original ineptitude, which seemed to me 
unhkely, but I did not beheve that England would have 
any weakness for Bulgaria if she recommenced her old 
games. They suggested that the future revival of Germany 
might be at the back of it all, but I thought it idiotic of S. 
to show his hand at this point of the game, if this were so. 
Perhaps, I said, he has been misconstrued. I should see. 
Stancioff's daughter, they said, had a French mother. I 
said that I attributed much of the Near-Eastern trouble to 
money-hunting originating in the I. O. Bank, and its cli- 
ents. Directly money touched politics you never knew 
where you stood. They feel this, too, after the debates in 
Parliament here on the Reschitsa case, in which eighty 
Deputies and thirty Senators received shares to support a 
formerly alien concern. They admit that the Rouma- 
nian administration is bad, but declare that their Army 
and judges are above suspicion. This is noble. The High 
Court Judge gets sixteen pounds a month, and the Lieu- 
tenant about four pounds. 

Saturday, July 16, 1921. Had a talk with M. Pavlovich, 
Charge d 'Affaires of Serbia here. He tells me that Pachitch 
is ill and when well will go to Marienbad. Also that all the 
other Ministers and chief people will be scattered and 
away from Belgrade till the end of August. So I see no use 
in going there now. I will see M. Nedkov, the Bulgarian 
Minister, to make sure of Stamboulisky before I start for 
Sofia. 

Have had a look round Bucharest now and find it im- 
pregnated architecturally with the German spirit. It is all 
modern, baroque, and rather pretentious. The people have 
not developed a style or an art of their own as yet. Taste 
always comes from above and filters down into a people. 
There has been no "above" in Roumania owing to the 
serfdom of sixty years ago, and there is not much in the 
way of aristocracy, or leisured classes, to select between 



308 NEW ROUMANIA 

styles and tastes. There is no traditional national taste. 
The country is politically ultra-national, dislikes the pre- 
tensions of foreigners to run its affairs, and so will advance 
much more slowly than it might. Typical examples of tiie 
defects of administration in small things at the Capital are 
the absence of pillar-boxes, and the ignorance of the jarvies 
of the geography of the town. There must be no examina- 
tion of them before they are licenced. I never find a car- 
riage driver to know any address, or to speak any language 
but Russian. The jarvies are mostly Russians who do their 
little horses well, but otherwise know nothing. They wear 
long black or blue velvet coats. Even at the F.O. there is 
no one at the door who speaks anything but Roumanian — 
which is unknown to nearly all the foreigners here. The 
best thing in Bucharest is the feminine portion of the bet- 
ter classes in the community. These are decidedly pretty, 
well and simply dressed, and in good taste. Their manners 
are very French, and France has still a great position here, 
though German is still the most popular language in busi- 
ness circles. If one asks one's way in the street the re- 
ply is usually in German. The ladies have good figures, 
features, ankles, and eyes; a little inclining to the harem 
style sometimes, and with a certain Eastern appearance, 
but they are quite attractive. They are the butterflies of 
the Roumanian garden, and do not really represent its 
products. 

Looked into various facts and statistics. There are 
some sixteen to seventeen millions i people in the new 
Roumania of 316,132 square kilometres, of whom some 
eighty per cent are peasants and sixty-five per cent illiter- 
ate. The density of the population is fifty-seven inhabi- 
tants to the square kilometre. The national unity has been 
accomplished in the recent settlement which has created a 
country of nicely balanced rotundity, well-placed, with the 
advantage of access to the sea, and with every sort of 
wealth, but with six States abutting on its frontiers, three 
of whom are unfriendly. With 121 milhon hectares of 

1 17,393,149. 



ROUMANIAN STATISTICS 309 

arable land and nearly five millions of pasture and grass, 
with immense forests, and with her gardens and vines, 
Roumania is, or at least should be, the chief granary of 
Europe. The sailings from her ports in 1920 were 2,557,000 
tons of foreign and 171,000 of national shipping. Her oil 
output can be taken at a possible 2,000,000 tons. She is 
sure to tend towards industrialism before long, and the 
field is open for repairs of rolling stock and bridges. With 
a doubled area she has only one-third the locomotives she 
had before. She needs heaps of things that we could sup- 
ply — machinery, tools, textiles, clothes, linen goods, soap, 
stationery, type-writers, motor-cars, rolling stock, pottery, 
china, and glass. Her industry is practically non-existent, 
and her new rural small proprietors will soon develop 
greater needs. 

She is the largest wheat-producing country in Europe. 
Her minerals are largely unexploited. Her coal is but little 
developed. So is her copper, asphalt, ozokerite, mica, and 
asbestos. Her sub-soil is as rich as the soil itself, while the 
population is enduring and sober. Her surplus of wheat, 
maize, wood, and oil is already large. She is a natural 
complement of industrial England. But she is without 
organising capacity, is short of agricultural machinery, and 
is on the whole committed to a selfish tariff which retards 
her rehabilitation; and she has done little for irrigation as 
yet, though the potentialities are great. She admits free 
only articles of primary necessity, places a fifty per cent ad 
valorem duty on articles of secondary necessity, and bars 
luxuries, even Lyons silk. She is sensitive and dislikes semi- 
foreign enterprises. She wants long credits. Her area has 
been increased from 137,000 square kilometres to 316,000 
by the addition of Bessarabia, Bukovina, the Banat, and 
Transylvania, but she has still a very elementary railway 
system, has a merely embryonic goods transport system, 
and her main lines must be speeded up, as the trains are 
intolerably slow. The endless customs barriers prevent free 
communications. She has divided some three and one-half 
million hectares among the peasants, and this, together 



310 NEW ROUMANIA 

with universal suffrage, is the basis of her social reorgan- 
isation. One is struck in Roumania by the remoteness of 
the country, by the long time taken to receive letters from 
London, and by the indifference generally shown to West- 
ern European politics, which seem to us here like the 
affairs of the moon. 

To-day I talked with H.E. M. Filaleki, who is named for 
Minister at Warsaw, to discuss Russian news. In general 
I gather from him and others that the Soviets have spread 
a web over Russia, with Moscow as a centre, and that at 
points in the web where the circular and transverse lines of 
the web cross, that is to say mainly at the larger towns and 
railway junctions, there is a strong Soviet rule which holds 
in its hands communications, supplies, and such adminis- 
tration as there is. But both in Russia and the Ukraine 
the distances are great, and the intervals between the 
Soviet posts broad. In these intervals the peasants and 
villagers form societies of their own and do as they please. 
The peasants grow only enough for their own use, and it is 
said that in some districts not over ten per cent of the 
arable land is cultivated. It is impossible to foretell what 
will happen. Lenin seems to have admitted the rights of 
private property and enterprise, but this is against Soviet 
principles and Trotsky holds to the old theories. Helsing- 
fors is the best centre for Russian news now, but we have 
no good intelligence nor really trustworthy agents. On all 
the Roumanian front no visas are given for passports on 
either side, and officially the frontier is closed, but many 
people slip through by bribes or evasion. There were 100,- 
000 Russian troops on the Roumanian frontier, but they 
have been sent into Asia — no one knows where. ^ It was 
desired to demobilise the Russian Army altogether, and in 
fact the numbers have fallen from 2,000,000 to 500,000, 
but the others refuse to leave, as they would lose their ra- 
tions which alone keep them together. They are a rabble, 
and in Poland simply took to flight and threw away their 
arms, at least all the infantry. The Roumanians are not 

^ See entry for July 20. 



M. FILALEKI ON RUSSIA 311 

afraid of them, but think the situation grave at Constan- 
tinople, as the Wrangel-Denikin Russians are all Bolshe- 
vists and practically occupy Constantinople, while they 
are also infecting Serbia with their poison. Much will 
depend on the success of the Greeks, but no end is seen to 
the Greek campaign even if it be successful. Filaleki thinks 
that the Bulgarians are hoping much from Russia and he 
dreads a big Slav movement in the future. He thinks that 
the religious question separates the Croats from the Serbs 
and is not very sanguine about the success of the Jugo- 
slav cause hereafter. 

The dog-days continue. Everyone who can escape is 
escaping. The nights are almost insupportable and the 
days not much better. The proper kit for this season is a 
bathing-suit with sandals and a Japanese parasol. 

The Millington Drakes dined with me at the Chateau- 
briand. The Government here are in a fix over the Reschitsa 
case in which several Deputies and Senators are involved. 
One of the Ministers made a very crude remark in the 
debate, and though Avarescu apologised for it, the Oppo- 
sition withdrew, and the Government does not dare to 
submit the Bill to the King. Everybody buzzing about, 
and I cannot get on with my investigations until they have 
regained their balance. 

Sunday, July 17, 1921. Went to call upon M. Nedkov, 
the Bulgarian Minister, who has been for twenty-three 
years in the diplomatic service, including sixteen in Tur- 
key, and knows Balkan affairs by heart. After we had 
fixed up my visit to Sofia, I opened the question of the 
accusations against Bulgaria, and we discussed in turn 
reparations in kind, the affair of the frontier bands, the 
supposed mission to the Kemalists and to Russia, the re- 
ported intrigues with ex-Tsar Ferdinand and the Turks, 
the general question of Bulgarian conduct and neutrality, 
the conduct of Bulgaria's late enemies in the Balkans and 
here, Jugo-Slavia's proposed "sanctions" against Bulgaria, 
and sought for the key-explanation of all this pother. 

As to the reparations, he explained that the census of 



312 NEW ROUMANIA 

animals to be delivered up took time, that they were all 
now assembled on the frontiers for delivery, and were 
merely waiting to be taken over. It was a terrible thing for 
a country in Bulgaria's state of exhaustion to make such a 
delivery, but they were keeping their promise. He said 
that the comitaji system was applicable only to the old 
days when the Turks and their suffering Christian subjects 
were in question. Then the bands found help from these 
subjects, and they had done much to create revolution in 
Turkey and to drive the Turks out of Europe. This sys- 
tem was not applicable now and there were no bands of- 
ficially organised. But there still were bands, he admitted, 
especially on the Dobrudcha border, because the Bulgar- 
ians in the Dobrudcha had retreated with the Bulgarian 
Army and had left their families behind. These families 
were in sore straits and attempts were being made to help 
them. But the men who had crossed over wished to return 
to their families and with them there joined many Turks, 
Tartars, and Roumanian deserters. These men gave much 
trouble in the Dobrudcha and certainly behaved ill on 
many occasions, taking part in looting and other excesses. 
If the Roumanians would join in regulating the situation 
of the Bulgarians in the Dobrudcha, the trouble would 
cease. I was not to count the bands as having any official 
character whatsoever, and it was to be remembered that 
the war had produced much moral and material demoral- 
isation, in Bulgaria as elsewhere, and had made many peo- 
ple desperate. 

Regarding the supposed relations with the Turks, the 
Bulgarian Government neither has nor had sent any mis- 
sion to them. A tobacco merchant called Grozkoff, with 
one other man and a clerk, had gone to Constantinople, 
and after making a contract had passed into Asia Minor. 
Among the Turks who came to Sofia was one young man 
who had attracted some attention (Djevad Abbas) because 
his object was not clear. He lived at the Bulgaria Hotel 
and spent much money. But the Bulgarian Government 
knew nothing about him and did not see him. There was 



VIEWS OF M. NEDKOV 313 

also a Bulgarian officer called Nikolaieff whom the Bul- 
garian Government wished to send to Russia to negotiate 
in favour of the Bulgarians still detained in Russia. He 
had got as far as Prague when the Allies made a fuss about 
him and he was recalled. This man was acting for the Red 
Cross and there was no other object in his mission. Nei- 
ther with the Soviet nor with the Turks did Bulgaria desire 
to intrigue. It was absurd for her to do so, with a popu- 
lation of five millions surrounded by strong and jealous 
neighbours. 

Ex-Tsar Ferdinand was living quietly at Coburg, and 
had no influence on Bulgarian politics. The only Bulgarian 
who might have visited him was Radoslavoff, who was in 
Germany and was the man, next to the Coburg Ferdinand, 
most responsible for the war. But Ferdinand hated Rad- 
oslavoff, to whom he attributed his fall, and was unlikely 
to have seen him. F. was disliked in Bulgaria. He almost 
openly showed his contempt for the Bulgarians, and he had 
lo motive in life but personal ambition and the desire to 
jule a great country. With these reports there had also 
come — about a week ago when I was at Vienna — the 
report of a peasant rising against the Government, of the 
closing of all banks and telegraphs, as I had known, and 
Nedkov said I had only to inquire in Sofia to discover that 
there was not a word of truth in all this stuff. Ferdinand 
had happily not bequeathed either his character or his 
ideas to his son Boris, who took after his mother, was a 
good democratic King, and much liked. The Bulgars were 
democrats and very independent, but they like discipline 
and the principle of authority represented by a King, and 
N. was sure that a Republic would not work so well. 

Then I said that I wanted to hold the key to all this 
mysterious series of accusations, especially those which 
aimed at Stamboulisky, as he had displayed courage and 
good sense in the Council before the war, and was not a 
man whom we should condemn unheard. "If you want 
the key of all these charges you must not seek it in Sofia, 
but in the countries round Bulgaria," said Nedkov. "Bui- 



314 NEW ROUMANIA 

garia only asks to work out her reconstruction in peace 
and not to be attacked. But her enemies are jealous of 
her." If I knew, he said, the mentality of some of the peo- 
ple in this part of the world, I should understand to what 
base means they descended to secure their ends. They 
were afraid of Bulgarian industry and jealous of her su- 
perior education — some fifteen per cent of illiterates 
compared with eighty per cent here. Their object was to 
cry down the credit of Bulgaria and all her works in order 
to create a prejudice against her, and so to prevent her 
from profiting from a revision of Sevres, and possibly of 
Neuilly. Athens, Belgrade, and Bucharest were all con- 
cerned in this plan of campaign, and perhaps personal 
jealousies entered into the second rank of causes. They 
did not wish Bulgaria to regain her old popularity in Eng- 
land and France, and so these tales were invented, sup- 
ported by every kind of suggestion and innuendo. They 
did not want Bulgaria to have her Treaty rights at Dedea- 
gatch which would help her exports and British imports so 
much, as Bulgaria would become too formidable a compet- 
itor with them, and so they used all the bogeys of the day, 
Turk and Bolshevik, comitajis and Ferdinand, in order to 
create a hostile feeling against Bulgaria. That was the real 
truth of all this matter. "Have j^ou said as much here.'^" 
I asked. "Yes, I have told them the truth," replied N. 
And has Stancioff done the same in London? N. did not 
know, nor had he heard of the initiative at Vienna before 
I told him of it. 

The Bulgarians were a quiet, hard-working folk, he 
thought. There was only some dogmatic Bolshevism in 
certain speeches, but nothing at all agissant. A race of 
peasants would have nothing to do with Bolshevism, as he 
said I must have observed here since the agrarian laws 
were passed. The Serbs were trying to profit by the delay 
in reparations in kind, in order to threaten Bulgaria with 
sanctions and to occupy the Debnik mines within twenty- 
five kilometres of the frontier. These mines were the Bul- 
garian Ruhr and all their industry depended on them. So 



TALK WITH GENERAL AVARESCU 315 

that is the answer of this reformed Bulgarian lamb to the 
charge of troubling the water up-stream. Not finally con- 
vincing in regard to the missions to Kemal and Russia, 
but, as a whole, worthy of careful consideration, and cer- 
tainly given by Nedkov with an air of sincerity and with 
considerable feeling. 

At seven went with Millington Drake to see General 
Avarescu, the Prime Minister. M. D. had to see him on an 
unpleasant matter. An Anglo-French combine had re- 
ceived the signed contract for the repair of Roumanian 
rolling stock, etc., a very big Job and most important for 
Roumania. The Minister of Communications had signed 
an undertaking to present a Bill on this subject to the 
Parliament by June, but now the Reschitsa case had fright- 
ened them off. That is their story. 

I found General Avarescu dug into a corner of his room. 
He was sitting in the corner, and a large writing-table was 
planted across the angle. A tallish man, just like the typ- 
ical Don Quixote, as Princess Bibesco had told me in 1916. 
He was very pleasant. I told him that I had come to make 
one request to H.E. the President and two others to Gen- 
eral Avarescu. The first request was that he should in- 
struct six Ministers, whom I named, to give me all the 
information I wanted about Finance, Commerce, Army, 
Police, the Government of Transylvania, communications, 
and oil. This he very kindly undertook to do and made a 
note of it. Then I asked him, as a General, to enlighten me 
on a point of history. I said that I had never felt completely 
informed about the Roumanian plan of campaign in 1916. 
Who made the plan? Why was it made? What advice did 
the Allied General Staffs give? Did they fail the Rou- 
manians in any particular, whether in regard to troops or 
war material; was their advice wrong, and did the Rou- 
manians attribute any part of the responsibility of their 
defeat to us, the French, or the Russians? 

Avarescu replied that to answer these questions fully he 
would give weapons to his political enemy Bratiano. Un- 
fortunately he could not separate himself, one half General, 



316 NEW ROUMANIA 

the other half Prime Minister. But he would tell me how 
the whole thing came about. I could rest assured that no 
responsibility whatsoever attached to the English and 
French, nor even to the Russians, who had kept their prom- 
ises. The truth came out by chance at a meeting of the 
King, Bratiano, and some twenty Generals, when it was a 
question of expanding the Roumanian divisions to twenty- 
four before Roumania came in. Avarescu had opposed the 
plan, as it gave numbers before quality, but Bratiano, 
speaking as Prime Minister, overruled him, giving as his 
reason that there were only weak forces in their front. 
This showed the whole bent of Bratiano's mind; his plan 
was to wait for the eve of the collapse of the Central Pow- 
ers and then to appear in the field with a huge force and 
impose his own terms. But the Central Powers concen- 
trated a superior force, while the Roumanian columns 
traversed the Transylvanian Alps in many columns widely 
separated, giving the Germans the opportunity of which 
they took full advantage. 

Avarescu had been with the Second Army, but after the 
disaster of Turtukai on the Danube, he had been sent down 
to restore matters in the south. So he had not been in the 
advance, nor responsible for the plan, which was that of 
General Iliesco, Bratiano's Secretary-General, an old re- 
tired engineer who blew his brains out when the plan failed. 
It was a political plan, directed to a political objective. 
He, Avarescu, on September 13, 1916, had drafted and 
submitted a plan for recalling all the Army from its for- 
ward march, for crossing the Danube, rolling up Macken- 
sen, and marching towards the south to set free our Salon- 
ika armies. I remarked that on that same day I had told 
the Italian Ambassador in London what would happen if 
the advance across the mountains continued, and he had 
telegraphed my opinion to Rome, whence it was sent to 
Roumanian G.H.Q. Sir William Robertson had given the 
advice to attack the Bulgarians. Had Avarescu been made 
aware of these warnings? No, he had not. They would 
have reached Roumanian G.H.Q., but at that time, and 



AVARESCU'S VIEWS ON THE STRAITS 317 

until after the smash beyond the mountains, he had been 
in the south. So this campaign is just one more — and a 
very typical instance for our Army schools — of the dis- 
astrous effect of political interference with strategy. 

Then I asked the P.M. if he would give me his views 
about the general situation at this moment in the regions 
round Constantinople, as it seemed to me grave, or might 
become so unless the Greeks won their war handsomely, a 
consummation which the Allies had done nothing to pro- 
mote. Where had the Russians gone from the Bessarabian 
front? What was Avarescu's view about Constantinople? 
Should not we Allies have a plan to meet contingencies? 
He replied that the situation had not yet developed enough 
to offer complete data, and there was still much indecision, 
and many matters indeterminate. But he considered the 
liberty of the Straits absolutely vital for Roumania. So do 
we, I replied. Yes, here our interests are entirely identical 
and we must help each other, he said. He could not tell 
what would happen to the Greeks. They had miscalculated 
once, and might again. They had not much gun ammuni- 
tion, and could not afford to squander it. Was the Greek 
discipline good enough to prevent this? As for the Rus- 
sians, they had left his front in June, but the preparations 
had begun some time before, and though some of the troops 
had been sent to Siberia, the greater part had gone to the 
Caucasus. About May 15, 1 suggested; the usual time for 
the opening of active operations in Russia, and in the sum- 
mer they could march all the way. I supposed that it was 
a bit over one thousand miles to Angora from the Dniester 
by land, with the railways to help, and some could go by 
Odessa and coastwise. Certainly they might be filtering in 
by now or very soon, if the communications were of any 
service at all. Avarescu said that he would put me in 
touch with the Army Intelligence and I could learn their 
views and hear their reports. That will suit me well. The 
P.M. told me, as others have done, that the Army was the 
most solid asset of Roumania. 
vlt was now nearly 8.30. We had both intended to talk 



318 NEW ROUMANIA 

for ten minutes and had spun it out to an hour and a half. 
The P.M. had a most important engagement at 7.30. But, 
he said, when people who are soldiers, whether in plain 
clothes or not, begin to talk soldiering, time is forgotten. 
An interesting figure, cool and shrewd, not liable to be 
stampeded, and with great knowledge of Russia, which he 
constantly visited before the war. He told me that the 
only thing he found fault with in our General Staffs during 
the war was their failure to strengthen him with fifteen 
divisions in August, 1917. Had we done so the Eastern 
front could have been kept going. 

Monday, July 18, 1921. Went to see M. Goga, Ministre 
des Cultes et des Arts, in the morning. A youngish man of 
marked capacity and intelligence, a Roumanian of Tran- 
sylvania, poet and writer, who had often been in prison for 
preaching liberty for his fellow-subjects. He told me that 
the various religions in Transylvania were now on an equal 
footing respecting subventions, because their heads had 
taken an oath of allegiance. On the material side they had 
nothing to complain of. They were the Roman Catholics, 
the Reformed Church, and the Unitarians, and they had 
of right six seats in the Upper House. He allowed perfect 
liberty of public worship and even that the Magyar hymn 
should be sung in church, though it was not sacred music. 
He made a rule that Magyar schools should be established 
wherever there was a Magyar majority, and even talked of 
a Magyar University in the Czekler district. Some seventy- 
five per cent of the personnel of the railways and posts was 
Magyar and the Roumanian wish was to make the people 
happy, but the strong nationalist sentiment of the Mag- 
yars made it difficult. The gendarmerie and the troops 
were Roumanian, but universal service was being applied 
without difficulty. (The King had told me that he had 
found and spoken to a Magyar soldier in his guard at 
Sinaia.) The real trouble was that the Magyars would not 
accept the Treaty. He admitted that the Roumanian per- 
sonnel was very inefficient and not large enough, but they 
were doing their best and everything he said seemed to 



TALK WITH M. GOGA 319 

show that the Minister himself was for a broad liberal 
policy without which, he said, he would deny all his past. 
He was willing to give me or anyone facilities for going 
where I would and speaking to anyone alone, and he had 
just given Mr. Tudor John (?) permission to address public 
meetings there. He would certainly give Sir Willoughby 
Dickinson every facility if he wished it. It seems that there 
are not more than 1,500,000 Magyars in Transylvania, but 
of these a solid block of 500,000 in one district. Everything 
was normal there now, and the country thriving. It only 
required national antipathies to die down and in a few 
years the situation would be quite satisfactory. 

He was having a fortnight's Congress at Bucharest in 
September to receive all the artists — writers, poets, mu- 
sicians, painters, sculptors, etc. Each branch would have 
a two days' discussion and then there would be general 
meetings. By these means he hoped to unify the artists 
and to learn their needs. They were all coming from all 
parts, he thought, and he said that the Magyars in Tran- 
sylvania had decided to take part in politics and to form a 
party. At present there were only five Magyar members, 
but they had a right to twenty-five 'seats when they wanted 
them. There was universal suffrage, but not female suf- 
frage yet. 

Mr. Grigori Jon lunched with me, and I acquired the 
certitude that some of the P.O. here think that it is Eng- 
land who is standing behind Bulgaria and Hungary, and is 
responsible for their assumed contumacy. They think that 
England desires the support of these States for her partic- 
ular ends. I told him quite crisply that England did not 
need nor seek the support of any State for her own ends 
and could look after herself. He said that they had been 
much impressed in Roumania by some statement of Count 
Bethlen, to the effect that English opinion was with the 
Hungarians. I replied that the English thought themselves 
free to express their individual sentiments as they pleased, 
but that the Government held to its friends and allies so 
long as they played the game. We had always had individ- 



320/ NEW ROUMANIA 

uals who attacked the Government, and even sometimes 
supported England's enemies. It was part of our tradition, 
and perhaps a pose. Grigori said that the Roumanian 
press here was very second-rate and that no one paid any 
attention to the views of any paper. 

I saw Sir W. Dickinson afterwards. He is here with his 
wife and daughter and goes on to Geneva later, after a look 
round. He has been filled up at Budapest with all the 
Hungarian criticisms of Roumania and thinks that the 
persecutions of minorities and creeds are the greatest danger 
to the Treaties. I hoped that he would see Goga and then 
have a good look round. A trustworthy man of a fine type 
with a pleasant daughter. I shall be curious to learn his 
appreciation of the Magyar minority question later on. 

Looked deeper into Roumanian resources. I should 
certainly place agriculture first in spite of the oil. With the 
new territories there are 14| million hectares of arable land 
or forty-five per cent of the total surface of the country, so 
it may be able to double its wheat export if no other cir- 
cumstances interfere. The weight of the grain runs from 
77 to 84.2 kilogrammes to the hectolitre, and the Bessara- 
bian wheat seems the heaviest crop. The mean production 
is 15.7 hectolitres to the hectare. As 4,150,000 hectares are 
cultivated for wheat, this may give 65 million hectolitres 
of which half may be exportable. Maize is a huge crop be- 
cause the people eat a maize polenta now, though they may 
go in for wheat when better off. The weight of this crop is 
72 to 83 kilogrammes to the hectolitre. It covers four mil- 
lion hectares, and requires no expensive plant and manures. 
Its culture prepares the land well for wheat and produces 
74 million hectolitres a year, of which a fifth may be ex- 
portable, chiefly in an industrialised form such as alcohol, 
glucose, etc. The Roumanians thoroughly understand the 
due rotation of crops. Galatz is the chief port of exporta- 
tion for cereals, as the Danube and the Pruth lead down to 
it. The capacity of export of the New Roumania in cereals 
of all kinds may be 550,000 wagons of ten tons worth 5^ 
milliards of lei. Cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs are part of 



ROUMANIAN RESOURCES 321 

the produce of the country also, but the war made fearful 
ravages in the live-stock and there is now only half the 
head of 1916. 

Wood is another large source of profit, and the forests 
cover seven million hectares; the best wooded region being 
Bukovina. About two-sevenths of the trees are resinous. 
The river system is very favourable for transporting wood 
to the mills for foreign markets, and also offers large sources 
of power as yet very partially utilised. The raft business is 
managed by gangs of men who take contracts for the work. 
Here again Galatz is the principal port. Everyone is nom- 
inally compelled to follow certain rules of the Forest Code, 
and only a fixed quantity per hectare may be cut each year, 
in all some ten million cubic metres, of which half is needed 
in the country, and thirty to thirty-five per cent is avail- 
able for export, representing 150,000 to 200,000 wagons of 
ten tons, value 2| milliards of lei. Almost every description 
of wood is grown. Rafts, funicular and Decauville light 
lines, chutes and canals, are used for transportation. There 
are numerous sawmills and other factories for dealing with 
wood produce. 

In oil, the total annual output capacity is placed as high 
as 4i million tons, but not the half has yet been obtained 
in the best year. The losses in the war, the destructions, 
and the crise des transports which still continues, have de- 
pressed the industry, but there is no doubt about its re- 
sources, into which I must look more closely. All these 
figures disclose the potential resources of Roumania, but 
the actual exports are at present far below the figures 
stated. 

Tuesday, July 19, 1921. One of the most exasperating 
things here is the absence of trustworthy statistics, and 
the sheer impossibility of separating them, for the new 
Provinces, from the Austrian figures. But here and there 
one picks up an interesting indication. For instance, in the 
Old Kingdom before the war, 1000 million lei of paid-up 
share capital were placed in industry, nearly all in limited 
companies with larger or small foreign share capital. Oil 



S22 NEW ROUMANIA 

companies represented half of this amount of foreign cap- 
ital invested in Roumania, and ninety to ninety-one per 
cent of it was foreign, Germany, Holland, and England 
heading the list. Sugar industries were mainly Belgian. 
In textiles only an insignificant British capital was en- 
gaged. Chemical industries were German and Austrian, 
cement and porcelain mainly Belgian. In all, out of 511 
million lei of foreign capital invested in Roumanian in- 
dustries, Germany came first with 121 million lei, the 
Dutch second, and England third with 97 million, or 18.8 
per cent. It is curious to note that more than half of the 
Roumanian industries were worked with foreign capital, 
the percentage in separate industries being 91.9 per cent 
in oil companies, 95 per cent in gas and electricity, 72.3 per 
cent in chemical industries, 74 per cent in metallurgic 
industries, 69.61 per cent in wood, and 94 per cent in sugar. 
It is difficult to get at the figures for the new Provinces, 
but it is thought that in the New Roumania there are 734 
industrial concerns with a total capital of 2536 million lei, 
excluding Bessarabia, Bukovina, and the co-operative 
societies which may bring the figure up to 3§ milliards of 
lei. It is curious that a country with so little coal makes 
such little use of the driving power of its many mountain 
rivers and falls. 

Roumania was fearfully backward in railways even be- 
fore the war, when she had some 5.3 kilometres of railways 
for every 10,000 inhabitants, compared with 36 kilometres 
for Sweden. This most important economic factor has 
been seriously neglected. In 1916 she had only 3600 kilo- 
metres of railway with about 1000 locomotives, of which 
half were useless, and 20,000 carriages and trucks. The 
greater part of this was destroyed or fell into the enemy's 
hands. A large programme was needed with an estimated 
cost of 1546 million lei, which would have given, in all, 
14,871 kilometres of railway. The system also had to be 
reversed and lines led to Jassy, Galatz, and Bucharest, 
instead of to Vienna, Budapest, and Odessa. The State 
could not carry out the work alone, and had to resort to 



FOREIGN TRADE AND BANKS 323 

the banks. But want of coal, difficulties of transport, and 
the potential motive force of Roumanian "white coal" 
made it necessary to study this latter source of energy in 
order to electrify Roumanian railways. The fall of the 
exchange makes this an expensive prospect, and in effect 
very little progress has been made. 

As for the foreign trade of Roumania, one cannot make 
out that New Roumania had a much larger export trade 
value than 1318 million lei in 1913, the imports nearly bal- 
ancing, but if she can export five and a half million tons of 
cereals and the ten million tons of wood, which she is capa- 
ble of doing, as well as work up her oil to the maximum fig- 
ure, it is thought possible that her exports may rise to seven 
milliards of lei before long. Intensive and more scientific 
cultivation of the soil, rational exploitation of forests which 
are still far behind the German efficiency, good work with 
the oil, and, above all, a large increase of railway rolling 
stock, are the only radical means of cleansing Roumanian 
economics and finance so heavily hit by the war. 

If we look at the banks there were 197 in 1913, with 215 
million lei of paid-up capital. Since then, new banks have 
been formed, and many old ones have increased their cap- 
ital, so that last year there were 277 banks with a sub- 
scribed capital of 1355 million lei, not including private 
banks. Adding the numerous banks of Transylvania (654) 
and those of Bukovina and Bessarabia, there are in all 927 
banks with a subscribed capital of 1523 million lei, and a 
paid-up capital of 1398 million lei. The popular, co-oper- 
ative, and village banks in New Roumania also number 
8883 with a total capital of 621 million lei. The great credit 
banks are 13 in number, and for 8 of them their united 
capital and reserve rose from 179 million lei in 1915 to 1174 
millions in 1920. In great part it is due to inflation. 

Public finance is less engaging. The Roumanian Budget 
for 1916-17 showed revenue and expenditure to balance at 
640 million lei, and the consolidated debt before the war 
was 1795 millions. Roumania's situation was among the 
best in Europe. The war profoundly changed this situation 



324 NEW ROUMANIA 

and in the Budget for 1919-20, there was shown a monthly 
deficit of 25Q millions which could be met only by further 
loans. The revenue was 816 million lei and the expenditure 
3900 millions. The war policy had been one of Budget 
deficits and of consolidated long-term loans, but in the 
main, of floating debt contracted at the National Bank. 
In the course of the financial year 1920-21, the Govern- 
ment unified the currency and established a normal ordi- 
nary Budget, leaving over till the autumn the extraordinary 
Budget destined to cover reconstruction, reparations, and 
pensions. The normal Budget showed 6090 million lei of 
revenue and 6600 millions of expenditure, in which the 
Army figured for 900 millions and communications for 
1163 millions. The indirect taxes were very heavy in com- 
parison with the direct. An income tax might bring in a 
milliard and by so much reduce the indirect taxes. But 
this Budget did not include a capital levy, nor a tax on 
war profiteers. This year's Budget includes both. 

The general total of the public debt on June 1, 1920, was 
11,329 million lei, including 7234 millions of floating debt 
all contracted during the war. Adding the increase of the 
public debt by the aggrandisement of Roumania and by 
the unification of money, the general total debt is 25,000 
millions. Per head of population it is 1470 lei compared 
with 6395 francs for England. It was thought last year 
that with a rational Budget, unification of the currency, 
and a foreign loan, the public finances could be restored. 
The fiduciary circulation is 13,371 million lei including 
roubles and crowns still in circulation compared with 40 
milliard francs in France. I have seen the national wealth 
of Roumania computed at 153,336 million lei. Deprecia- 
tion and the instability of tiie exchange, together with the 
absence of succession duties, and up to this year of income 
tax, make all calculations dubious, but if the wealth is 153 
milliards, a debt of 25 milliards is not deadly. I think that 
there is a great future for English trade in Roumania, and 
that if we use our banks to take the financial place for- 
merly filled by the Germans we should have a larger share 



TALK WITH GENERAL NIKOLEANU 325 

in the future profits from Roumanian resources. It was on 
their banks that the Germans based their successes in 
Roumanian trade. 

The Serbian Minister had asked me to call this morning. 
When I went he was ill. He might have telephoned to 
spare me the trouble. A young secretary talked a bit of 
Bulgaria, and showed great distrust of her. Afterwards 1 
saw M. Paul de Jurjewicz, Councillor of the Polish Lega- 
tion, who advised me to go to Warsaw by Czernowitz, and 
promised to arrange for me on the frontier. As this route 
will take me through Galicia, it will be well to adopt it. 
J. made a point of the idea that, when Russia began to be 
opened up, Poland would be the best jumping-off ground, 
because it was near, and many Poles knew Russia well. He 
was rather sarcastic about the supposed evolution of the 
Russians. He doubted that they had the capacity to evolve. 
He said that I should find the Poles working hard, and 
thirty per cent more workmen busy. 

Saw General Nikoleanu, the head of the Bucharest Po- 
lice, a man with clear views and a rapid, incisive manner of 
speech. He has only 2600 men all told, including 1000 
gendarmerie who belong to the Army. He ought to have 
many more, but as the pay is only 400 lei a month, and it 
costs a couple and a child ten lei a day for food, they are 
resigning fast. He has detective brigades, and sergents de 
ville. Some three hundred men are always on duty in 
eight-hour shifts. He wants much, but cannot get it. In 
winter the lamps are all put out at 1 a.m., so the burglars 
have a fine time. All prisoners are brought to the Prefec- 
ture to be tried, so the Police become acquainted with them. 
Bucharest has now 800,000 inhabitants and wants many 
more police, he says. The town is divided up into inspec- 
torates, radiating out from the centre of the town, and the 
inspectorates are divided into circumscriptions. In the 
provinces there are 5000 police and 12,000 rural gendar- 
merie. All the system is one, under the Minister of the 
Interior, and there is no difference in the new Provinces. 
Lunched with the Millington Drakes at the Jockey 



326 NEW KOUMANIA 

Club. Mr. and Mrs. Sproull Fouche, Mr. Greene, all of 
the U.S.A., Miss Stuart, Mr. Baggallay, and Mr. and Mrs. 
Napier. The Fouches touring the world and have just been 
to Bessarabia, where they say the Jews cross the frontier 
nightly at a cost per boat-trip of two hundred lei. In the 
winter they cross at night on the ice. They all want to get 
to America, but the new U.S. immigration rules will stop 
them. Went to call on Mme. Lahovary, wife of the Rou- 
manian Minister in Paris, in the afternoon and discussed 
the agrarian laws with her. She thought that the ultra- 
democratic reforms had all come much too quickly. The 
division of the land should have been gradually made, 
not in a hurry, and then, when education had gone fur- 
ther, universal suffrage might have come later. A largely 
illiterate electorate was not ready for it now. Instead of 
handing the lands over to the State, it has been so ar- 
ranged that the new peasant proprietor had to be con- 
fronted with the original proprietor before the tribunals, 
making them as it were rival and hostile contestants and 
creating bad blood. She thought that the old proprietor 
would be able to keep 330 hectares, while houses, grounds, 
gardens, orchards, and vineyards — in fact any plots 
whose production was entirely due to the old owners — 
were not included in the 330. The peasants in some cases 
received only five hectares. The distribution of the lots 
was all done locally. How can a man and five hectares 
make a farm? I asked. What about capital, farm buildings, 
plant, cattle, seed, and so on? She said the peasants had 
made heaps of money before and during the war. The 
Germans behaved well to the peasants and villages, but 
sacked the towns. The peasants had hired their wagons to 
the Germans at high rates. They bought seed, and the 
cattle came to them from the captures in Hungary. They 
were contented, but would all farm the fields in patches, as 
indeed they are doing, and the result in exportable surplus 
wheat might show a loss. Roumania would get a large 
conservative class through these changes. The King had 
set the example by giving up the Estates of the Crown. 



MME. LAHOVARY 327 

Mme. L. was on the whole in favour of these changes, but 
would rather that they should have been presented as a 
social reform than as a reward to the people for their con- 
duct in the war. She pointed out that everybody was 
working for the State and doing something for the country. 

Later met M. Caius Brediceanu, head of one of the F.O. 
departments, who drove with me to the Athene Palace 
Hotel where we talked Eastern Europe. I try to make 
them see that the attitude of Hungary towards the Trianon 
Treaty is perfectly natural, and that some of us keep our 
personal preferences for the Hungarians without in the 
least failing towards Roumania. B. is in charge of Hun- 
garian affairs and I explained fully my point of view about 
it all. Then I raised the question of the future of Slav 
sentiment in Eastern and Central Europe, and what it all 
meant. B. said that the Czechs were the only Slavs with 
education and capacity for organisation. They had in- 
herited the natural leadership of the Slav people. It was 
they who had stampeded the Northern Jugo-Slavs at the 
close of the war. I said that I had been impressed by a 
recent speech of Benes in which he had described his coun- 
try as the Western advance guard of the Slav people. 
What did this mean? He could not be in both camps, and 
previously he had based all his policy on the Entente. 
Had it failed him? Had L. G.'s statement that he did not 
care whether Austria went to Germany angered him? 
Was he seeking a more solid basis for an anti-German 
combination? B.'s views on this subject are as unformed 
as mine, but he promised to think it over and write to 
me.i 

The Government passed their Budget to-day. It is 
7,660,594,452 lei, and the public debt has risen to 27 mil- 
liards. An internal loan for 100 millions is projected. It 
seems that the Roumanians have made arrangements with 
Germany for a first credit of 450 million marks payable in 
merchandise. This is where we are hit. Reparations seem 

^ He did not. Roumanians are not remaxkable for keeping promises or ap- 
pointments. 



328 NEW ROUMANIA 

a less blessed word for us than Mesopotamia, and that is 
saying a good deal. 

Wednesday, July 20, 1921. Saw General Valiano, Min- 
ister of Communications, in th€ morning. He said that he 
had 1300 locomotives now in use, would have 2000 by next 
April, and 4300 in all at a later period, the date of which he 
seemed uncertain about. He has 80,000 wagons and car- 
riages, of which 20,000 cannot be used, and wants 100,000 
in all. He is hoping to make a contract for 500 Enghsh 
locomotives and describes the terms as favourable, because 
payment, including interest, can be put off till the autumn 
of 1922. The locomotives actually ordered are 50 Baldwin 
from America, 80 from Skoda, 50 from Oonsten Koppel 
(Berlin), 75 from Henschel John of Cassel, 176 from the 
German consortium, and 300, nominally from Bruthnel 
(Canada). I am to get the maps and programme of con- 
struction. He told me that the Anglo-French contract for 
repairs "might" come up again in the autumn, but that it 
could not be passed now as opinion was hostUe to it. 

Went on to visit the General Staff. I found the Sub- 
Chief of Staff and head of the Intelligence, General Gorski, 
at the G.S. building in Stirbey Voda Street. A good mod- 
em staff officer with sound views. We had met in Bado- 
glio's office in Rome earlier ui the year. Later he introduced 
Colonel Dimitrie Palada in charge of his Russian section 
and we had a good talk over the whole position. They gave 
me all that I asked for and made no mystery about any- 
thing. 

In general, the Bolshies now have 70 divisions of in- 
fantry, each of a mean strength of 5000 with 24 guns, and 
20 divisions of cavalry. The total strength is 300,000 to 
350,000 uifantry and 50,000 to 60,000 cavalry. These 
troops are divided into three main groups, namely. West- 
ern front, Caucasus front, and Reserves. The Western 
front runs from Archangel to the Black Sea, and is in three 
commands. The Petrograd Command has only three di- 
visions of infantry and extends south to the Libau-Moscow 
railway. The Mohilev Command continues the hne south- 



TALK WITH THE GENERAL STAFF 329 

ward to the Pripet and has one cavalry and ten infantry 
divisions. The Kiev Command completes the Hne down to 
the Black Sea and has four cavalry and fourteen infantry 
divisions. This latter command faces Bessarabia and the 
Roumanians. 

Taking the Reserve next, it is now distributed over a 
large area of which Kharkov is the approximate centre. 
The area covered is an oval 700 kilometres by 500, and 
here are eleven to twelve divisions of cavalry and seven- 
teen to eighteen of infantry. This reserve is available for 
the defence of the Crimea, and is also suitably placed for 
re-enforcing either the Roumanian or the Caucasus front. 
I The Caucasus front has the Ninth Army, so called, with 
one cavalry and three infantry divisions from the Sea of 
Azov to Sukhum Kale. The Central Caucasus Command 
or Terek Group has five divisions of infantry and reaches 
south of Tiflis. Further south the Tenth Army has three 
divisions of cavalry and five of infantry, includes Baku and 
Erivan, and reaches down to the Persian frontier. Note 
also five divisions of infantry in the Orenburg district and 
five in Transcaspia. Assuming the general totals to be 
correct, there is little left over for Siberia. 

For the actual Bessarabian or Roumanian front I was 
given another map which shows the Russian front oppo- 
site the Roumanians to be divided into four sectors. The 
places and numbers of all the divisional headquarters are 
shown. Gorski and I both think the general dispositions 
very reasonable and that they show that someone who 
knows his business has made the plan. There has been a 
general movement latterly towards the Caucasus and the 
south. The centre of gravity is now Klarkov. They think 
here that a movement by sea is open to the Russians, and 
also the re-enforcement of Kemal by sea and land. 

But Gorski declares that, though the Bolshies have not 
abandoned their pretensions to stampede Europe, they 
are incapable of much harm owing to want of food, commu- 
nications, and money. He says that their experiences have 
taught them that they cannot stand up against regularly 



330 NEW ROUMANIA 

organised troops. So he thinks that they may pursue 
their plans in Asia or Asia Minor where they are hkely to 
meet softer mihtary material. The position of the Bolshies 
facing Roumania must be difficult, as the Ukraine is full 
of armed bands all across the Bolshie communications. 
These bands run up to 15,000 strong, and all the villagers 
are armed. The Russian break-up led to the desire for 
local independence, and the Ukraine was not backward in 
this movement. 

The Dniester front is held by the Roumanians and the 
Bolshies on the opposing bank. It is impossible to launch 
a boat without it being fired upon. Bessarabia is full of 
vineyards, and the produce used to have a great sale at 
Odessa and in South Russia. Its means of transport was 
the Dniester, from July to September. Later on by sledge. 
The land has been divided as in other parts of Roumania, 
and the great proprietors retain their vineyards, as these 
have not been expropriated. On arable land their hold- 
ings are limited to one hundred hectares here. There is a 
difficulty in marketing produce, as the Dniester used to be 
the main line of traffic. So the Roumanians are prepared 
to treat, and the projected meeting on board a ship in the 
estuary of the river may come off. Bessarabia is stiff with 
wheat 1 and the chance of Bolshie irruptions for the sake 
of food may be on the cards. But generally Gorski thinks 
that ten Roumanian divisions can take on the thirty-two 
Bolshie divisions of the Kiev Command and the Reserve. 

I find them much incensed against Bulgaria. They say 
that it requires a whole division in the Dobrudcha to keep 
out the comitajis, and if they pursue the bands they are 
fired on by Bulgarian troops and may let themselves in 
for a regular war. They say that they have captured cor- 
respondence from Bulgarian sources with Russia, and 
ditto from Bulgarian Deputies who had embarked in a 
boat on the coast for Odessa. They say that the mission to 
Kemal is correct and also the Nikolaieff mission, and that 

^ Later reports showed that the Bessarabian wheat was partially scorched by 
the sun. 



TALK WITH THE WAR MINISTER 331 

the Bulgarians are Philo-Russian and Slavs, and will not 
change their character. I only wish they would give me 
definite proofs, for at present I have only statements. 
They also say that Bulgaria has many more men than 
they allow and heaps of hidden arms. 

Had tea with the Pouches. I liked her story of the 
musical Bessarabian peasant of whom she had taken a 
snapshot playing the flute. He was asked why he had not 
married. He replied, "My flute is my love, and wine is 
my joy." Fouche tells me that he is experimenting with 
a patch of cotton crop on the Queen's estate. It is doing 
fine, and he believes that huge crops could be had. It has 
never been grown here before. He is a cotton-grower, and 
says that he has never seen any land like this of Roumania. 
His view is that wherever maize can grow, cotton can 
grow. 

Thursday, July 21, 1921. In the morning saw General 
Rascano and M. Garoflid, Minister of Domains. Called on 
Colonel Dundas, our Military Attache, in the afternoon 
and had a talk. Saw Mr. Keyser, our consul here, in the 
evening, and Mr. S. Guest, Secretary of the Astra-Romana 
Oil Company, the biggest in Roumania. Dined with the 
Foreign Minister, M. Take Jonescu, at 9 p.m. A busy day. 

General Rascano is a pleasant and capable man. He 
has followed my writings for many years and knew all 
about my views. He tells me that New Roumania has a 
contingent of 140,000 youths of twenty-one, but he will 
take only 120,000 for two years' service, and will train the 
other 20,000 for a few months as specialists, and then 
place them in the Reserve of the Army. They are to be 
trained as railway men, telegraphists, postmen, carpenters, 
and other useful trades, so that on mobilisation, or in 
case of civil troubles, the State may have under its hand a 
militarised personnel to run the utility services. At pres- 
ent the Army has twenty-one divisions, besides two rifle 
divisions on the Hungarian frontier. The new organic law 
is coming out in April and will be on the basis of nine 
Army Corps. He said that Roumania had to anticipate a 



332 NEW ROUMANIA 

war on two fronts at present, so I presume the idea is an 
army of three expanded corps on each front and a reserve 
army. They seem pretty well off for war material, but are 
very short of aeroplanes, having only two to three hun- 
dred. 

General Rascano and I thought, that in view of the 
situation on the Black Sea Littoral, we ought to have a 
closer understanding. They want a lot of ships and two 
thousand aeroplanes or more, and can supply any amount 
of troops. I should like Greece to be in this arrangement, 
but the liberty of the Straits demands an international 
garrison. It is foolish for us to be taken unawares by 
events on the Black Sea Coast. With Roumania and 
Greece we can control all this front, besides preparing a 
check on Bolshevism if it moves east. The Black Sea 
is a much more suitable theatre for suppressing Bolshie 
intrigues and operations eastward than it ever was in 
Russia's Imperial days. We can here put a stopper upon 
Lenin and company. That is why Bolshies and Turks will 
spare no efforts to get hold of the Straits. 

Rascano tells me that he is dividing up the men of the 
different new Provinces on the Italian system so that the 
whole Army may become homogeneous. There will be the 
same proportion of the various races in all the regiments. 
This is worth trying. He says that the Hungarian officers 
will not serve, but Saxons and other races will, and the 
Saxons he describes as very dependable. I fancy that 
the Disarmament Conference at Washington will not 
arouse much enthusiasm here, unless the U.S.A. takes 
over the Dniester and the Dobrudcha fronts! We talked 
for an hour of Roumania's various militarj^ interests. 

Later I saw M. Garoflid to talk about the agrarian laws. 
He gave me a succinct account of their origin, application, 
and future development, and is also going to send me the 
text.i 

He said that this question had been debated in Rou- 
mania for forty years and could no longer be evaded when 

^ He never did. Nothing comes in Roumania unless you fetch it. 



M. GAROFLID ON AGRARIAN LAWS 333 

the neighbouring Russian, Ukraine, and even Bessarabian 
peasants had all taken the land. It was a question of 
staving off an agrarian revolution here, and the Bill led to 
a great struggle of six months in Parliament before it be- 
came law. The King had taken the lead and had given 
100,000 hectares of the Crown estates to the people. The 
law was in application now in the Old Kingdom. In 
Transylvania they were proceeding by short leases and 
the law would be appHed in the autumn. Bessarabia had 
joined Roumania on the condition that her new land laws 
held good, but she had been persuaded not to expropriate 
the great landlords altogether, but to allow them to retain 
a portion of their lands. The old proprietors' share for the 
whole New Kingdom was one hundred to three hundred 
acres of arable land, and the peasants had two to ten 
acres according to the local conditions. There was no 
cast-iron rule. The peasants were well off. Many had 
worked with their own teams and wagons for the land- 
lords, and had their own traditional working tools, and also 
their houses. It was easy for them to exploit their new 
lots. Yes, it was intended to give them full possession and 
all the titles, as well as the right to sell the land. But any- 
one could declare fifty per cent of his property to be in- 
alienable and then could not draw back. This property 
then remained in the family. Gardens, woods, and vine- 
yards were not included in the expropriations. The pro- 
prietors received about one-third the pre-war price of their 
land. It was an immense sacrifice on their part and they 
had behaved admirably in consenting to it. 

I talked with Colonel Dundas afterwards. He com- 
manded the 61st Division at the end of the war and spent 
four winters in the Ypres salient, which must be a record. 
He spoke enthusiastically about Allenby and Jeudwine, 
but thought that in many cases the initiative had been 
pressed out of our oflScers by too much ungumming. Like 
South Africa, I said. He is a hard, conscientious Scot, and 
is neither pro nor con Roumanian. A good type. He 
agrees with me that we neglect Roumania and her impor- 



334 NEW ROUMANIA 

tance. Joffre and Badoglio have both been here and we 
have sent no one of importance. He thinks that the offi- 
cers here are not very contented, as a subaltern gets only 
1400 lei a month, and it is not enough to live upon. D. has 
a house in the Banat for his family, and so gets in touch 
with the common people. He travels constantly and 
knows this country well. He tells me that at present the 
mayors and notaires are having a gorgeous time, as they 
have the power to allocate the land. He tells me that 
Constantinople is in a great state of mind about a Bolshie 
attack on Bessarabia, but D. does not seem to worry 
about it. Nor do I very much, since someone — Rascano, 
I think — described the Bolshie communications behind 
the Dniester through the Ukraine bands as resembling 
tracks cut through a primeval forest. So it appears on the 
map given to me, though the strength and possibilities of 
these bands are on the vague side. We had a good talk, 
and later met again and discussed our own Army affairs. 
He is off to Budapest again to meet Thwaites and Gorton. 
He writes a fortnightly account, and a weekly letter giving 
all the news. A good man to have here. 

I had a talk with Consul Keyser in the afternoon. He 
has been here eight years and speaks Roumanian pretty 
well, it seems. He has not a high opinion of Roumanian 
energy, and says that most of our business houses have 
lost money here owing to the fall in the exchange and re- 
fusal of the people here to pay the price of goods con- 
tracted for. But this is nothing new, nor is it peculiar to 
Roumania. Yet nobody ventures to tackle this vital prob- 
lem of the exchanges. Saw Mr. Guest in the evening, and 
we are to dine together to-morrow. Apparently the Astra 
Company's one hundred per cent dividend means nothing, 
for it is in the depreciated currency as against the original 
gold value investment. He says that a smaller dividend 
than about one hundred per cent now means that a com- 
pany is on the rocks. One may be here, he says, for months 
and never hear of the legion of small companies which fill 
our financial papers at home with reports of their doings. 



MR. GUEST ON THE OIL INDUSTRY 335 

He regards the whole oil industry as highly speculative, 
and most uncertain, and thinks that an enormous capital 
has been sunk in it with disproportionate results. The ex- 
port tax of three pounds per ton on the light benzine is 
crippling. His difficulty is the constant fanciful experi- 
ments made by officials here who do not understand the 
industry. He is inclined to doubt whether bribery is very 
rife. The lack of transport, the export tax, and strong 
foreign competition are among his worst troubles, but he 
considers the Roumanian oil the best in the world. 

There was a good deal of Bolshevism at the workings at 
one time and the men threatened to take over the wells. 
The Government at last acted drastically and made whole- 
sale arrests. This stopped the trouble dead. They could do 
things here that would not be possible in England. Rou- 
manian labour had not the wit nor the experience of our 
Trade Unions. 

Dined with the Take Jonescus at 9 p.m. A nice house of 
the Cairo type, very suitable for entertaining, with good 
rooms and good modern furniture. An excellent and cool 
balcony for sitting out on these hot nights. The second 
Mrs. T. J. is a tall good-looking lady with very fair hair. 
Also there were Prince and Princess Grigorie Ghika, Mme. 
Falcoyanu, and Mme. Mavrocordat. I had a good talk 
with T. J. during the evening. I told him that my diffi- 
culty about Bulgaria was that I had only statements 
against statements, and that I could only give the two 
without drawing conclusions. If he liked to give me proofs 
of Bulgarian duplicity, and they satisfied me and were not 
refuted by what I learnt at Sofia, it would be different. In 
the end of the talk he asked me to come to the P.O. on 
Saturday morning and he would show them to me. I had 
told Millington Drake that I proposed to take this line and 
he had approved. Now we shall see what it all means. T. J. 
quite understood my difficulty. 

I had a talk with him about the Slav renaissance. He is 
the ally of the two Slav people in this part of the world, and 
thinks that Jugo-Slavia will never trust the third Slav 



336 NEW ROUMANIA 

State, Bulgaria, again. But he allowed that Roumania 
was very isolated, a Latin island in a more or less Slav sea, 
and told me that he was ready to admit Greece into the 
Little Entente. He had acknowledged King Constantino 
by accrediting his Minister to him, and thought with me 
that the situation of the other Allied Ministers at Athens 
was supremely ridiculous. 

T. J. is, of course, a strong Ententist. His main com- 
plaint against us all is over the reparations, in which Rou- 
mania figures for only one per cent as the result of the Spa 
Conference, while there are large sums claimed against Rou- 
mania for her depredations in Hungary. But one per cent on 
132 milliards of gold marks is a pretty big sum after all. He 
does not think that he has been treated fairly in this mat- 
ter. I opened up the question of a closer understanding 
between England and Roumania on Black Sea affairs and 
he seemed to favour it. He told me that, though want of 
money had prevented Roumania from proceeding with the 
naval plans recently suggested by one of our naval officers 
sent here, he had accepted, and was just about to sign a 
contract for the training of Roumanian naval people by 
ours. This will help a good deal. 

He also said that his representative at Constantinople 
had recently sent him a wire telling him of the various 
rumours current with regard to Roumanian intervention 
in Greco-Turk and Constantinople affairs and had asked 
to be told what the policy was. T. J. had replied by five 
points. First, that Roumanians would not take any part 
in the present hostilities between Greeks and Turks. Sec- 
ondly, that in case Bulgaria intervened and initiated any 
action against Greece, Roumania would proceed to taper 
at once. Thirdly, that Roumania would assist in the de- 
fence of Constantinople if her aid were needed. Those 
were the main points. The others have escaped me - and 
I think were of minor importance. He had stated this pol- 
icy to the King of Roumania, who had entirely approved. 

1 One was that no request of any kind for Roumanian intervention had 
reached Roumania from the Allies. 



JONESCU ON ROUMANIAN POLICY 337 

T. J. seems to have a very free hand in foreign pKjlitics and 
to be in complete control of it. He said that his man at 
Sofia, M. Rascano, was excellent, and kept him well posted 
with timely information. This Minister is on good terms 
with Sir Arthur Peel. He did not ask how his information 
was obtained, but it was very good. 

T. J. thought that our diplomacy was not active enough. 
He was not talking of our diplomacy here, but of it gen- 
erally. He did not include Millington Drake. The latter 
was very active and alert and he liked him very much. He 
had seen him on a variety of matters. The German Min- 
ister here had presented his credentials and since then had 
not been near the Foreign Office, nor had had any com- 
munication whatsoever with T. J. I am not very surprised. , 
The Germans sacked T. J.'s house when they were here, 
leaving nothing but the walls, so a German Minister can 
scarcely regard himself as a persona grata. It was a silly, 
spiteful thing to do. 

I asked T. J. whether he was forming any school of for- 
eign politics. He seemed to me to have initiated, and in 
fact created, the whole foreign pvolicy of New Roumania, 
but if this were to be an enduring work he should train up 
the best young men in his ideas and then they would carry 
it on. Bismarck had made the mistake of not forming such 
a school, with the result that when he left office he was suc- 
ceeded by one imbecile after another, who accumulated 
blunder on blunder, and led up to the disaster of 1914. 
Moltke had formed his own school. It had been beaten, but 
had been damnably efficient, and its fall was due mainly to 
the horrible political inefficiency of Bismarck's successors, 
and to the fact that a Chief of Staff had been nominated in 
1906 because his name was Moltke. T. J. had not thought 
of it, but seemed much 'interested and asked various 
questions about it. 

We also discussed the Poles, and he told me of various 
conversations which he had had with L. G. about them. 
T. J. had admitted to L. G. that the Poles were considered 
abroad to be inefficient, and that they were neither liked 



338 NEW ROUMANIA 

nor trusted. Well, then? asked L. G. Yes, said T. J., but 
can you, he asked, conceive a peaceful Europe without a 
Poland? Can Poland stand unless the Allies support her? 
Is not a Russo-German combination certain eventually if 
we do not cultivate a strong Poland? L. G. admitted all 
this. Well, then? asked T. J. He told me that the great 
defect of Poland was her want of leading men. Certain 
influence had compassed the political ruin of every man of 
any importance who had risen, out of jealousy. The sure 
hall-mark of the second-rate man, I replied; the big man 
likes competence and seeks for it. Poor Sapieha was the 
last victim. Where is Roman Dmowski? I asked. Ah! a 
very good man with great esprit, intelligence, and compe- 
tence. He is vegetating at Posen apart from affairs. 

T. J. asked me much about my visits to other countries 
and I told him my views about personalities and things. I 
did not raise the question of his surete or sicuranze service, 
as I believe it is called. It is very active and pretty vexa- 
tious. T. J. is said to have agents everywhere and to look 
after the press, especially in France. But for Roumania, 
with so many dangers round her, and a somewhat ele- 
mentary civilisation, the system can be understood. We 
had quite a pleasant evening, and talked till midnight. 

Rascano told me in the morning, by the way, that they 
meant to suppress the Dobrudcha troubles with a strong 
hand. They had declared martial law there and had a 
whole division on the spot. The bands came by narrow 
tracks through the forests and the Roumanians were 
making them into broad tracks so that troops could piu'sue 
more rapidly. They had armoured cars there, and wireless 
telegraphy, for their wires were regularly cut. T. J. told 
me that they would have only 500,000 tons of wheat this 
year for export from the Old Kingdom, while in Transyl- 
vania and the Banat there was only about enough for local 
needs. 

Friday, July 22, 1921. Sent off some wires to Constan- 
tinople and Prague. The lady at the Post-Office made very 
heavy weather over them and covered sheets with rows of 



MR. ALEXANDER ADAMS 339 

figures to calculate the cost. Mr. Alexander Adams, Com- 
mercial Secretary at the Legation, is back and he lunched 
with me. An intelligent young-looking Scot, aged forty, 
highly trained, and skilled in economics. He has known 
Roumania for many years and we talked of his reports. He 
was not surprised that Guest did not give me what I had 
asked for. All the oil companies were like that. A. did 
not take jaundiced views of the oil industry, and said, in 
reply to my inquiry, that I might justly place the p>otential 
output at 2,000,000 tons a year. But he admitted the fear- 
ful transport difficulties and the competition and falling 
prices. He was amusing on the subject of the visit of 
Mr. X, who had been in Bucharest five days, had not seen 
Transylvania, and had cursed the Roumanian adminis- 
tration of it. A. employs a man in running round and com- 
paring figures. A.'s chief diflSculty is not only that of in- 
adequate statistics, but of the inaccuracy of ofl5cial data. 
He is'against any international policy for England. France 
has always had one and has always been at war. A. pre- 
ferred our system of meeting a situation when it arose. He 
had not brought his 1920 Report with him, as it was not 
published when he left London. He had dealt largely with 
economics and declared that the Roumanian debt of 
twenty-seven milliards was really over fifty milliards. He 
had thought it necessary to take up the whole question of 
the exchanges which were affecting our trade so seriously. 
Hardly any politicians understood it, nor even many ex- 
perts in economics. He thought that last year's harvest 
would give an exf)ort of one and a half million tons of wheat. 
Dined with Guest and we talked oil and then branched 
to diplomacy. One of his troubles is this strange Rouma- 
nian habit of passing "Decree Laws" suddenly, which take 
effect at once and are rarely thrown over by Parliament 
later. It is necessary to have a British Minister here who 
will act at once on his own responsibility in some cases to 
protect British interests, and to prevent a Decree Law 
from seeing the light when it harms these interests. A 
Minister who will not act without F.O. authority is of no 



340 NEW ROUMANIA 

use in these cases. He told me more of his Astra-Romana 
Company, of the attacks of the Standard Oil people on the 
British, and of the attempts of a German group backed by 
certain politicians here to accaparer the oil industry. I 
think that we may have trouble over the ultra-national 
sentiment here when it is used as a cloak for expropriating 
the oil industry as it may be some day. Our interests seem 
to lie with the Conservatives of the present Government. 

Saturday, July 23, 1921. Went to the Foreign Office in 
the morning. Take Jonescu was punctual. I first showed 
him for his approval a short wire which I proposed to send 
to the D. T. on the Middle-East policy of Roumania, based 
on his message to his man at Constantinople, which he told 
me about the other night. He initialled it to avoid reference 
to the censor and to save time. I did not know before that 
there was still a censorship. Evidently T. J. looks after the 
press. The lady at the Post-Office knew his hieroglyphic 
of initials at a glance. 

Then he handed me over, after a brief talk, to M. De- 
russi, the Secretary-General of the F.O., and to his Min- 
ister at Sofia, M. Rascano, who is here on short leave. De- 
russi has also been Minister at Sofia for three years, so 
they were both well-posted. T. J. had also taken out of his 
own portfolio numerous despatches for me to read. We then 
adjourned to the next room and had a good investigation. 
For actual proofs of Bulgarian duplicity or evil intentions 
I was shown orders informing certain commanders that if 
the Allies came along they were to give them certain re- 
turns, forming enclosures in the Bulgarian official letter 
of instructions. The returns were marked "A" and "B." 
One was the correct one, the other destined for the Allies, 
if they asked for one. Photographs of the originals were 
attached. I was also shown alleged Bulgarian postcards 
with Kemal's photograph on them. There are also sets of 
stamps, one lot bearing the heads of Lenin and Trotsky 
and the other the head of ex-Tsar Ferdinand, with pictures 
of Bulgaria, including the Southern Dobrudcha and Mace- 
donia, and other possessions^hot now Bulgarian. I was also 



COMPLAINTS ABOUT BULGARIA 341 

shown numerous official reports, and one of Stamboulisky's 
own despatches to the Allies, answering the charges against 
him. 

I think that there is a strong presumption, assuming 
these reports to be authentic, that the Bulgarians have 
been, and are, in constant correspondence with Moscow. 
I saw no captured despatches, in fact nothing in writing on 
the subject, but was told of various Bolshie visits, the last 
being of the Soviet Commissary, Lippovitch, ten days ago 
to Varna. He complained to the Prefet next morning that 
a million had been stolen from him, and he is supposed to 
have had four millions — I suppose roubles. The great 
enemies of Roumania in Russia are Rakovitch and Bela 
Kun. Rakovitch is a Bulgar who had Roumanian citizen- 
ship for a time. He is the Soviet representative at Kiev, and 
is very active, as well as dangerous, for he knows Roumania. 
Bela Kun is in the Ukraine, and Bessarabia is his special 
province to work up. 

With Grozkoff there went Lieutenant Pissaroff, late of 
the Bulgarian Army, and a trader named Entcheff. Stam- 
boulisky had given different accounts of this mission to 
everyone in turn. At one time it was a private party, at 
another, a tobacco contract, and at a third, a meat deal. 
They have no doubt here that S. is in constant touch with 
Russians and Turks, and that both these people send men 
to Bulgaria constantly. One is the Djevad Hassan^ who 
is cutting a dash at Sofia now. They think that if the 
Greeks had not won their battle — as they have in the 
last few days — the Bulgarians might have been in the field 
with 200,000 men, but this, of course, is only an opin- 
ion. It seems probable that high Bulgarian officers have 
been in Constantinople to harmonise the operations of 
Turk and Bulgar comitajis. One high Staff officer went 
there and the excuse was that he went on account of some 
property left to him. Then Sofia was asked how another 
happened to be there at the same moment, and Sofia said 
that he was ill and had gone to convalesce.^ 

* Djevad Abbas is his real name. See later. 

* This must have been some time back. 



342 NEW ROUMANIA 

They regard Stamboulisky and his Bulgarians as ready 
for mischief at any time. They will all do anything they 
can to advance the interests of their country, and S. has 
publicly proclaimed himself the disciple of Lenin. He is 
utterly ignorant of the elements of foreign policy and 
thinks that the old games can begin again. The Bulgari- 
ans, they say here, have twice the number of men allowed 
by the Treaty and heaps of hidden arms. They have 
also a system of compulsory labour for all, men and women, 
for two years, and the men, who number some 200,000, 
wear a sort of uniform and have been seen drilling and 
doing musketry. They live in barracks most of their time. 
The Bulgarian excuse that they cannot pay for a Volunteer 
Army is absurd, for the cost of the compulsory labour sys- 
tem has been reckoned up and costs more than a Volun- 
teer Army would.^ It is necessary that this system should 
end, as it is merely an astute means of turning the Treaty 
of Neuilly. 

I am told that Peel has resigned, but that he, the Serbian 
and Greek Ministers, and the Roumanian, Serb, and Greek 
Military Attaches, can give me full information, photo- 
graphs of documents, etc. M. Picot, of Syria, is the French 
Minister. He makes flowery speeches lauding the Bul- 
garians and displaying a tenderness for them which facts do 
not warrant. Our military man on the Inter-x\llied Commis- 
sion, Plunkett, they consider Bulgarophil. He would not 
allow the Serbian Military Attache to give evidence before 
the I.-A. Commission, because he had no orders to that 
effect from the P.O. The Roumanians say that some peo- 
ple positively resent the presentation of proofs of Bulga- 
rian ill-will. ■■ 

In fact, it is the cumulative effect of much evidence, all 
pointing in one direction, which leads to a deep suspicion of 
Bulgarian bad faith. With complete mendacity Occiden- 
tals might not be taken in, but it is the infantile character 
of Stamboulisky's goings-on that disarms them. For in- 
stance, he went one day to the Serbian Minister and made a 

* I think it only costs one-fourth. 



COMPLAINTS ABOUT BULGARIA 343 

statement to him. Afterwards he denied that he had made 
the statement or had even paid the visit! We were really 
dealing with Old Bulgaria and the old elementary con- 
ditions, which few Westerners could understand. Mendac- 
ity, intrigue, short-sight, hate, and violence were among 
the Bulgarian arms. There was a lot more told, but as I 
am off to Sofia on Tuesday, I can examine things better 
there. 

But I can find no proof of any intrigue between the ex- 
Tsar and Stamboulisky. Each hates the other cordially. 
Derussi agreed with me about this. Possibly Ferdinand is 
fool enough to want to get back, but there is no proof of this, 
and, for the rest, what could he do.-* I don't think poor 
King Boris can have a bed of roses. The two Roumanians 
say that the most dismal thing in the whole affair is the 
disunion of the Great Powers, whose representatives do 
not pull together, and often it is enough for one to take a 
line for the other two to take two other lines. They think 
that an Allied warning to S. would do good. My own im- 
pression is that Kemal has been bucking to Sofia of what 
he will do in order to help himself out by getting the Bul- 
garians to threaten Thrace, and the simple Bulgar has^be- 
lieved him and has begun to get ready for a Balkan ram- 
page. The Turk probably knew that he would be beat if 
Bulgaria did not force Greece to recall some troops to 
defend the home territory. 

Sunday, July 24, 1921. I have been dipping into the oil 
question. I find here, as in many other countries, that the 
oil-fields are nestling under the mountains and generally 
on the eastern side of them. The Boyars, I suspect, took 
the rich lower-lying ground and left the poor foot-hills to 
the peasants, thus inadvertently giving them the richest 
parts of the country. It is on the eastern and southern 
slopes of the Carpathians that all the oil is found here and 
I expect that it is more or less continuous from the Danube 
to Galicia. 

The Bashtanari, Campina, and Moreni fields were 
among those first developed. There was one single well in 



344 NEW ROUMANIA 

the latter field which yielded 400,000 tons of oil in the 
period of maximum prices! The real headquarters of the 
industry is Ploesti, where there are the great refineries, 
and I was to have motored there to-day, but Guest is ill and 
I have other guests at lunch. Hither lead the chief pipe- 
lines from the important fields, and other refineries are at 
Campina. From Ploesti there now runs a five-inch pipe- 
line to Constanza on the Black Sea, which I am told has a 
fine oil port, specially designed, with ample storage. To 
that extent the transport difficulty is overcome, but I 
found lines upon lines of tank wagons all round Ploesti and 
right up to Bucharest, and there are, of course, masses of 
material required on the fields or near them for building, 
drilling, refining, and storing. The industry is much 
hampered by the lack of, transport facilities. Also, petro- 
leum-mining must be as speculative as other mining. It is 
cheaper in its plant and shafts than coal-mining, but less 
sure in its results afterwards, for one never can say what an 
oil sand may produce till it is tested. But when the old 
Columbia well in the Moreni field produced oil worth 
£1,200,000 in eighteen months after costing at the outside 
£5000 to sink, we cannot be surprised at people being 
willing to take chances. It is not at all uncommon to find 
pioneers drawing as much per day from a well as they have 
spent in sinking it. There has been, all the same, a wealth 
of money spent in over-capitalisation of most uncertain ven- 
tures in which the distinguishing feature has always been 
lack of working capital, which has disappeared in the capa- 
cious pockets of promoters. If intending investors came 
here and examined the industry on the spot, they would 
soon discover which was good and which bad. The equip- 
ment and sinking of wells which had transport facilities 
within reach were formerly comparatively small affairs 
financially. They have since become more costly. It now 
may cost £20,000 to sink a well. But here, as elsewhere, 
title is everything, especially as many small owners may 
have to be handled. Here people take mineral rights under 
leases, leaving to the owners the surface rights. The old 



THE OIL INDUSTRY 345 

term of a lease was usually twenty-nine years, but now 
varies, payments being by royalties, rents, or both, or by 
lump sums down. By legislation of 1914 no oil leases may 
remain un worked for more than ten years. This still holds 
good. 

Commercial supplies of petroleum, says a high authority 
on this industry, are restricted exclusively to strata of sedi- 
mentary origin and to those of comparatively recent geo- 
logical age, the Tertiary, which yield the bullv of the world's 
oil to-day. Except coal and iron, mining areas rarely co- 
incide with oil-fields. Enormous quantities of sand are 
extracted with the oil. Guest says that he often has 
hundreds of men working all night to remove it. Sands are 
often thrown up for many days before the oil appears. 
Gas often comes up for weeks or months before oil in good 
quantity appears. But Roumania has some wonderfully 
rich fields. An area of one hundred and thirty acres at 
Moreni gave 4,000,000 tons in ten years, and in one single 
year (1913) gave nearly a million tons or 7000 tons (52,500 
barrels) per acre. 

One indication of oil is the poverty of the top soil when 
petroleum exists. Vegetation seems sterilised. There are 
injurious compounds in soil containing oil which have a 
very marked effect. But it depends on climate and geog- 
raphy. Much rain may counteract the effects. Where the 
rainfall is small, the vegetation is usually stunted or non- 
existeat. The expert, as a rule, sneers at surface indications, 
yet most of the wells here and in Galicia were started on 
surface indications and against geological advice. Oil pros- 
pecting, like the higher finance, seems to be an art which 
nobody understands — though many think they do — nor 
can learn by textbooks. As for the engineering and geologi- 
cal science needed for the industry, this is of the highest 
order, and here in Roumania a General Manager who 
cannot spepk Roumanian, German, and French, is of 
little use. 

The petroleum industry cannot complain that it has 
been neglected of late, nor that 1920 was a bad year, even 



346 NEW ROUMANIA 

if the conditions of the silver market brought large profits 
which were alien to the industry in itself. Oil has been a 
political and commercial interest of a first-rate kind. It 
has figured in the Supreme Council; it has become of vast 
importance to navies and armies; it is being generally 
adapted to mercantile shipping. The tens of thousands of 
motor-cars turned out every week, all rely upon it: many 
railways — here for example — make use of it. The oil 
supply of the world seems below the demand. The hfe of 
the best well is not long. The calorific value, the saving of 
space, labour, and dirt, as well as cost, implied by using oil 
are great advantages. So, even if there is now a fall of 
prices, a good company, run by men of known integrity 
and competence, with good reserves of potential oil-fields, 
and a good specialised staff, is still worth following. The 
others are not. 

The greatest trouble to such companies at present is the 
stupidity of Governments. All being short of money, and 
oil companies of the best class being rich or at least produc- 
ing riches, it seems obvious and natural and just for Gov- 
ernments to squeeze them dry. But it is uneconomical. It 
is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The way to 
make use of the goose is to get hold of the golden eggs. 
These are the income of the share-holders, i.e., the profits 
of the companies, and the more the industry itself is as- 
sisted and freed from hampering restraints the more eggs 
there will be. The Governments are really saying to the 
goose, you must lay no more golden eggs, and we will take 
precious good care that you don't. One can draw more 
taxes, from a people taxed up to a certain point, only when 
they have more income, and, so far as regards oil, the more 
the companies are hampered the less the income. When 
one sees a company, like the Royal Dutch, taxed in 1915 
some 8,000,000 florins and in 1920 80,000,000 florins, as 
well as forced to pay heavy export taxes in some countries, 
including Roumania, one can understand why there are 
fewer golden eggs in the possession of the tax-paying in- 
vestor; why he is less incHned to speculate, and why the 



THE EXPORT TAX ON OIL 347 

country which owns the wells eventually loses all industry. 
A fixed export duty is wonderfully silly and unjust. It is 
silly because it does not make allowance for prices, and 
forces curtailment of production. It is unjust because it is 
a subsidy to other companies working in countries which 
have no export duties. There should be an agreement be- 
tween Governments on this subject, but they are too busy 
pouring out money on unproductive expenditure to care. 

The best way for great companies to get on is to have 
holdings in all parts of the world, and to spend much money 
on research. The Royal Dutch understood this early, and 
the Americans late. It is an expensive business to send 
surveying parties far and wide, and to set the best engi- 
neers, chemists, and geologists on research work, but the 
companies which have done so have profited. Only com- 
panies with large means could afford it. Political troubles 
upset all calculations, as we have seen since 1914. Here in 
Roumania the social and economic conditions have had a 
disturbing influence upon oil. Transport diflSculties alone 
have proved a serious obstacle. Extension, production, 
and refining have all suffered. The want of materials, 
especially for drilling and of electric power, have contrib- 
uted to this result. The generating stations for electricity 
are in progress, but not completed. The large damage done 
in 1916 is not yet all made good, nor has a penny of indem- 
nity yet reached the companies, four years after the harm 
was done to them. If the Government released its control 
of petroleum exports in July, 1920, there remained restric- 
tions on the amount that might be exported, and also there 
were very high export duties. They have since been re- 
duced and should be abolished owing to the fall in prices. 
The more stable the conditions of politics and trade the 
better the outlook for oil. 

If, in a country exploited for oil, this industry enters the 
political arena; if certain parties in the State are known or 
supposed to be interested in one company rather than 
another, and if there are large State holdings in oil-fields 
which may be allocated to some favoured company, then 



348 NEW ROUMANIA 

the game is not a fair one, and an honest company may be 
playing against another using loaded dice. However, the 
Dutch at home and in the East Indies are as hide-bound 
about the economics of oil as anybody else. One should ask 
Deterling! 

The American Minister and the Millington Drakes 
lunched with me under the trees at the Chateaubriand. 
We talked Eton — where all of us had been — Roumania, 
and diplomacy. Jay rather irate because the Roumanian 
P.O. here had said that they could not accept letters in 
English, which is the American rule, and Jay has no one 
who can draft a really good despatch in French. Drake 
told him our practice which was to write in French. Jay 
said that out of one thousand or more Americans at the 
Peace Conference in 1919, there were only two who could 
draft a letter in really good French. He thought that the 
best way of doing business was that of a certain American 
Minister at a Central American Capital. He went into his 
balcony with a police whistle and whistled once for the 
President, twice for the Foreign Minister, three times for 
the Minister of Commerce, and they came running round 
to him. I thought that Curzon and Hughes should agree 
to send all notes and despatches in English and let the 
foreigners write in their own languages if they liked. The 
sooner all the world spoke English the better. It had to 
come. French was splendid for lying or for love letters, but 
only an infinitesimal fraction of Anglo-Saxons were good at 
it. Millington Drake is one of this fraction and he learnt 
French as a child and talks it with a beautiful accent. I like 
him very much. He is active and energetic, very clear- 
headed, most industrious, and with the saving sense of 
humour. If only the P.O. would keep staff enough to let 
their young men — one at a time — travel in the country 
and get to know somf^thing more than the Capital and the 
cor'ps diplomatique! 

Mr. Jay told us to-day that the Standard Oil Company 
were not exporting from Roumania, owing to the export 
tax. Jay is an uncommonly nice fellow. A big, robust. 



OIL COMPANIES 349 

active American with strong English sympathies, who 
could not be anything but straight if he tried not to be. He 
is in the regular diplomatic service and has been at Cairo 
and Rome, as well as in Salvador. 

By the way, if I were a Roumanian, I would, in the con- 
ditions of to-day, take '*ense et aratro" as my motto. It 
corresponds with facts, and recalls Trajan. 

Had a talk with X after dinner at the Athene Palace 
Hotel. I begin to feel that the main danger to our large 
capital sunk in oil here is not from difficulties of production, 
increased cost of labour and materials, or even lack of 
transport and low prices, but from the uncertainty about 
the action, if not the honesty, of the Government which 
might declare oil a Government monopoly, or grant some 
rival companies large areas of oil-producing State lands, or 
in other ways make money by devious ways out of the 
companies. It is only by such means as this that political 
groups can reward their followers, for Governments have 
no money to throw about. I asked X about the Steaua- 
Romana Company. It seemed to me the mine which near- 
est rivalled the Astra-Romana. But was it not a German 
concern, and why had it not been expropriated? It had been 
by law, replied X, as all the enemy-owned mines were sup- 
posed to be taken over in part payment for compensations 
due from Germany. But then X gave me details of what 
followed, and I was highly entertained and enlightened by 
the story. X also toid me that the Government were hand- 
ing over some twelve hectares each to various small Rou- 
manian companies, more or less as a gift, so one never quite 
knew where one stood, and this uncertainty about Gov- 
ernment action was the main danger to British investors 
here. The French have a large holding in the Astra-Ro- 
mana, both private investors and banks; in fact a larger 
holding than in their own companies. He told me to-day 
that he sent two trains a day to Constanza for export — 
eight hundred tons. The royalties paid to the peasant 
proprietors are ten, fifteen, and up to twenty per cent on 
profits. The boring tests have been little applied and it is 



350 NEW ROUMANIA 

probable that much more oil may be found further into 
the plains. 

Monday, July 25, 1921. Hotter than ever. Spent two 
hours getting some money from the Bank of Roumania, 
and had a talk with the English Manager who is not an 
optimist. Changed my lei for lewas. Got my hair cut. 
The other men there were being manicured like ladies. 

Lunched with Mr. Charles Spencer, Chairman of the 
Sheffield firm of Cravens Railway Carriage Company, 
who is here with his allied French group after the repairing 
contract. A very shrewd man with a good wit and judge- 
ment. He has been here since December, and was interest- 
ing as well as entertaining on the difficulty of doing busi- 
ness here. He has had a good look round and agrees with 
me that a large system of barter is the only means^ of caus- 
ing our trade to revive. But he would not give our Govern- 
ment the control of it, only the supervision. He would 
place it in the hands of business men of the Associated 
Trades, with a strong Labour infusion, and finance it 
through the banks, as big business abroad used to be 
financed. He thinks that the future of our trade is nearly 
hopeless unless this idea is taken up. Spencer has big and 
sound ideas. He told his French group that if there was 
any question of bribery here, he would take the next train 
home. He says that once you begin this practice, you have 
to bribe everybody down to the office boy, and that it 
breaks you in the end, apart from the immorality of the 
proceeding. He says that the Roumanians think that 
anyone — a plumber or a motor-car mechanic — can re- 
pair a locomotive, whereas it is one of the most technical 
jobs in the world. It is the same for bridges, and one must 
know the exact effects of the extreme heat and cold here. 
I think that his firm will remain here to advise and finance 
the repairs and that he will get his contract in time, as he 
does not like failure. He tells me that a 104-ton locomotive 
costs £14,500 in England and the same article £8500 in 
Germany. He thought that the German low prices and 

^ Later on I discarded this opinion. 



TALK WITH MR. CHARLES SPENCER 351 

long credits mean Government support. I thought that it 
might be so, but that cheap coal and food, and the German 
acceptance of low wages and standards of living, were 
enough to account for it all, while the low exchange in 
Germany was a fearful handicap to us. He did not see how 
we were to make money by exporting goods abroad now, 
nor how we were to lower the cost of living in England if 
we did not. We had a long talk over the commercial de- 
ductions from my tour over Europe. He was sick about 
the drastic cutting-down of the Oversea Trade staff in 
London, and said that they were invaluable. They could, 
at any moment, present our traders at home with any facts 
and figures needed, and they had all the reports from men 
like Alexander Adams here, whom Spencer rates highly and 
calls a ticket index. He introduced me to two of his French 
group who were lunching near us. One was a very nice 
fellow. Colonel Lebert, who was at the French G.Q.G. most 
of the war. Another was a shrewd and amusing M. Strauss, 
a Portuguese Frenchman, who described the Roumanians 
as Iwresques, saying that they had read everything and 
were very intelligent, but could do nothing and were not 
practical. It was the same in Rio de Janeiro, of which 
Bucharest much reminded him. Spencer had hoped that 
the twenty-six per cent duty on German goods would 
enable us to compete with them. I told him that it would 
not, and his own figures for the locomotives proved it. I 
was even dubious about a fifty per cent duty. We must 
get our coal and labour cheaper and hours longer or the 
Boches would win the Peace. Spencer thought that the 
elimination of waste was a leading advantage of the Ger- 
man system. He asked me if the Germans were keeping 
down the exchange on purpose, and I said that it looked 
like it, but I could find no evidence of it. Spencer thought 
that the only people here who were all right were the peas- 
ants. He thought that there were many men in the highest 
posts who could not be bribed. 

Tuesday, July 26, 1921. Started 5.30 a.m. by car to 
Giurgiu (Giurgevo), A horrible road full of holes choked 



352 NEW ROUMANIA 

with dust, a beast of a car whicli, after bringing its only- 
spare tyre into use, broke down again soon afterwards. 
Crawled into Giurgevo and transferred to a carriage. 
Only a few minutes to show passports and pass douane. 
Crossed the Danube on the steamer. The river eight 
hundred yards broad. Found myself stepping ashore in 
Bulgaria. 



CHAPTER XII 
^BULGARIA 

ftustchuk — Across Bulgaria — Crops and herds — Plevna — A visit to 
the Premier, M. Stamboulisky — An interesting character — His account 
of the Council of September 15, 1915 — I recount the charges against Bul- 
garia — Stamboulisky 's answers — Views on Russia — Relations with Kem- 
alists and the Soviet — Stamboulisky and death — The King arrives — 
Stamboulisky on reparations — Sour milk and caviare — Captain Collins 

— Attraction of Sofia — The Board of Works and our Legations — Talks 
with Little Entente representatives — The Labour Conscription Law — Sir 
Arthur Peel — Colonel Baird on the Bulgarian Army — On our propaganda 

— An audience with King Boris — An attractive character — His views on 
the charges against Bulgaria — On a volunteer army — No relations with 
ex-Tsar Ferdinand — He considers an attack on his neighbours insanity — 
The stamp episode — The Museum — A conversation with (Jeneral de Four- 
tou — Effectives and armaments of Bulgaria — Some secret reports chal- 
lenged — His plan for completing the Army — Why our secrets get out — 
Another talk with the Little Entente — Need to test the authenticity of the 
challenged reports — A talk with M. Dmitroff, the War Minister — Bul- 
garia's past treachery — Her ferocity in war — Drs. Gueshoff and Majaroff 
at the British Legation — Defects of the Agrarian Party — Treaty-making 
power — Sanctions against Bulgaria — M. Petco Stainov's opinions — 
Grozkoff's mission — A visit to Vranja — A conversation with the Serbian 
Minister, M. Raditch — His opinion of Stamboulisky — The Government 
a tyranny — The Consortium — Sir Charles Stewart Wilson on reparations 
— • Return to Bucharest — Two Clemenceau stories — M. Kissimoff gives 
reasons for considering the secret reports forgeries — His summary of the 
Bulgarian policy — Leave for Paris — Robbed by bandits in Transylvania 
— Compare experiences with Lord Hardinge — How he calmed an Anglo- 
French dispute — Sledge-hammer politics — Arrival of Mr. Lloyd George in 
Paris for the conference — Return to London. " "" 

The Roumanian Consul was very attentive. He and Mr. 
Wincer, the British Vice-Consul, lunched with me, and in 
the evening Mr. Wincer, and Mr. Coates of the Shell Com- 
pany, dined with me at Frank's Restaurant. Coates 
brought his Pohsh wife. Much talk of the situation here. 
Coates has been at Varna, where three weeks ago there 
came in from Odessa a motor-launch carrying seven per- 
sons, under the red flag, and transferred money to one 
Brons-Boroevitch, who is possibly running the Bolshevists 
here. They say that he was Lenin's secretary in earlier 
days. They say that the Bulgars spend their time discuss- 



354 BULGARIA 

ing politics. Coates is organising the Shell business in 
Bulgaria. A smart and pleasant fellow. He puts down the 
sale price of gas oil at three to four pounds a ton, and the 
Roumanian export duty on it at one pound a ton; kerosene 
(lamp oil) — market price six pounds a ton, export duty 
two pounds; benzine — market price twelve pounds a ton, 
export tax four to five pounds. It will thus be seen how 
heavily Roumania hits this trade, when the cost of produc- 
tion is considered. 

I went to look at the headstones of the graves of the two 
British officers who fell here in 1854. They were William 
Meynell, 75th Regiment, and James Burke, R.E. The 
graves were in good order. There are nearly eighty of our 
men of the Salonika Army buried in the cemetery here. 
Part of the price of that odious Salonika strategy. I think 
that troops of more nations must have passed up and down 
the Giurgevo-Bucharest road during the war than over 
any other in Europe. Wincer does not think much of the 
various folk in this part of the world. He says that they 
usually lie, and always lie about each other. There are 
40,000 people in Rustchuk, and 10,000 of them are good 
Jews of Spanish origin, who practically possess the trade 
of the town. Had to spend the whole day at Rustchuk, as 
the train does not start till midnight. No attempt has been 
made to suit the convenience of travellers between the two 
capitals. 

Wednesday, July 27, 1921. A strange day. Very hot, of 
course. We traversed Bulgaria. Not so naturally rich a 
country as Roumania, but fairly well cultivated. More 
wheat than in Roumania. It is mostly cut and carried. 
The straw ricks are massed by battalions, ricks varying 
from ten to fifty tons; a fire would destroy each group. A 
few agricultural machines at work. The main standing 
crop is maize, but vegetable marrows are popular, and I 
think that they are cutting a second crop of hay. I saw 
some large herds of cattle, trek-oxen mostly, I fancy, 
handsome, upstanding, grey beasts; and herds of pigs; 
mostly near water. There were also some herds of black- 



PLEVNA 355 

and-white cattle. In some cases there were pig bathing- 
places cut out by the side of streams and fenced in. Here 
the pigs were revelling in the mud and water, almost en- 
tirely covered and lying in crowds. I can't recall that I 
have ever seen pigs so well looked after or provided with 
bath-houses at home. There are also large flocks of sheep. 
More black sheep in the flocks than I have ever seen any- 
where. But then we are in the Balkans. 

Plevna interested me. So far as I can recall the to- 
pography, after the lapse of all these years, we passed 
through the centre of Osman Ghazi's fortified camp, and 
saw the positions so long assailed in vain by the Russians 
in 1877. Skobeleff, the Grivitza redoubt, and the Rou- 
manians who saved the situation, all come back to memory. 
A fine tactical position such as the Turk would never miss, 
but one example the more of the truth of the Napoleonic 
maxim that he who remains behind his entrenchments is 
beaten. As we approached the mountains — Balkans 
mean heights — the ground became poorer, and finally we 
threaded the gorges of the Isker with no other communica- 
tions in the valley but the line, and with all the rest taken 
up by the stream itself. The hills gaunt, severe, and repel- 
lent, but apparently passable anywhere by infantry and 
mules, and covered with rough vegetation and scrubby 
trees. We were ascending all the time, and finally de- 
bouched upon the plateau where Sofia stands at a height of 
1600 feet, surrounded by higher and distant mountains on 
all sides, and fell into the city without any appreciable 
warning at about 4 p.m., after a broiling hot, dirty, and 
dusty journey, with nothing to eat or drink all the way. 

An emissary of the F.O. Press Bureau, M. AchtardjieflF, 
met me and we drove to the Union Palace Hotel, where a 
room had been taken for me. He told me that Stamboul- 
isky had decided to leave for Switzerland to-morrow for 
his holiday, and that my only chance of seeing him was 
to-night. So I hastily made a toilet of sorts, despite the 
fact that water had failed in the hotel, and then I visited 
the head of the Press Bureau for an instant, transferred 



356 BULGARIA 

into an elementary motor-car, and drove off to S.'s country 
house a few miles outside the town. A new place, recently 
built, cream-coloured with red tiles, consisting of farm 
house linked by a row of cowsheds to S.'s own house, a 
two-storied quite small building, with no window on the 
ground floor on the outside of the court, and I should say 
not more than two rooms on each floor. There was a small 
guard in one of the rooms below, orderlies, perhaps. Sir 
Charles Stewart Wilson, of the Reparations Commission, 
was just leaving and we exchanged a few words agreeing 
to meet again. With him was M. Boris P. Kissimoff. He is 
Minister designate for Athens, and seems to be S.'s chief 
man. I was shown up at once to the top of the little house, 
up wooden steps half covered with a drugget stair carpet 
without stair rings or rods, and met S. at the top. A big 
burly man nearly six feet high, with tremendous muscular 
development, inclining to fat, a large strong face with a little 
turned-up black moustache, ruddy complexion, brown eyes 
which often flashed fire, and a mop of curly black hair. I 
was interested to find myself with the hete noire of the Little 
Entente. We sat down at a table in the centre of the room, 
which seemed to be bedroom, study, dining-room, and 
audience chamber all in one. There is a bed at one end, a 
hanging place for clothes on the wall; a sideboard-cupboard 
with a few plates, dishes, and bottles; and four chairs. In 
this room is a window built out where S. can survey ar- 
rivals at the farm. There are two other windows. We sat 
down at the table. S. at the end with his back to the bed, 
I on his left, Kissimoff, who translated, facing me. Men- 
tally I compared Chequers with these humble surround- 
ings. 

After a few formal remarks I opened the conversation 
by observing how much interested I had been by the story 
of S.'s conduct at the Council before the war, and that it 
was of historical interest, so I wished to hear S.'s own ac- 
count of it, as his courage on that occasion apf>ealed to me. 
He gave his account. It was on September 15, 1915. Yes, 
he had told Ferdinand that if he led the country into a 



STAMBOULISKY AND FERDINAND 357 

disastrous war, he would have to answer for it, not only 
with his throne, but with his head. F. had almost fainted 
at the threat and his Ministers had crowded round him to 
support him. Danieff had told F. that the voice of Bul- 
garia spoke with S. F. had recovered, and glaring at S. 
said that other people might lose their heads as well as he, 
that S. was young, yet might lose his head before F. who 
was old and to whom life had not the same value as for 
youth. 

But then Stamboulisky said to me that a higher test of 
his own courage came when the tribunal before which he 
was tried — a real Balkan tribunal it must have been — 
had caused him to be informed — or maybe the message 
had come direct from F. — that if he would recant and 
send a message to the Bulgarian Army that it should 
march unitedly under F. in the good cause, his life should 
be spared. He took an agonising half -hour to weigh his 
reply. He was young and loved life and activity intensely. 
On the other hand was his personal and political honour. 
He decided to refuse, but came back into the dock with a 
pistol concealed about him, determined to take his own 
life in the court if he were sentenced to death rather than 
trust himself to his executioners. But F. must have feared 
to murder the peasant's favourite at such a moment, so he 
had him clapped into prison for life by the judges instead. 

He had seen F. only once since, and this was when the 
Revolution had begun and F. was about to leave the coun- 
try. F. had asked him to go and calm the Army. At this 
last talk with F. he had told the fallen monarch that Bul- 
garia could get on with Boris because he would make a good 
constitutional monarch which F. could never be. That was 
his last communication with him and Boris was present. 

Now that the ice was broken and I had found S. in an 
expansive mood, I asked him if I might speak quite frankly 
to him. Yes, he replied, the pleasant and the unpleasant. 
I laughed and said that I was coming to the unpleasant. 
There was a strong suspicion that he was negotiating with 
the Soviet and the Turks of Kemal. I asked him to explain 



858 BULGARIA 

to me the Nikolaieff mission and that of Grozkoff; the 
arrival of Commissaries at Varna; the presence of Djevad 
at Sofia, and to give me his own views on these events, and 
on the general situation in Russia and in Turkey. 

S. said that Nikolaieff's mission was as Nedkov had 
already explained to me.^ But the sufferings of the Bul- 
garians in Russia were much on his conscience, and he 
could not desert them. He therefore hoped that he might 
attain his object through the good services of the Czecho- 
slovak State which was in relation with Russia and as- 
pired to the leadership of the Western Slavs. 

"Do you reckon yourselves to be Slavs?" I asked. 
** How do your people generally regard the Russians to-day 
apart from the Soviet regime? " " We are Bulgarians first 
and Slavs only afterwards," S. answered. "In the days of 
older men like you, Kissimoff," he went on — and I asked 
to be included in the Kjssimoff generation category — 
there was strong pro-Russian feeling. There was all the 
story of 1877-78, the statue of the Tsar-Liberator which I 
have since seen before the Sobranje, and the subsequent 
history of that period. But now Bulgaria was emancipated 
from leading-strings. Events, and particularly the doings 
of Generals Kaulbars and Skobeleff in 1882 and the suc- 
ceeding years, and the Russian design rather to use Bul- 
garia as an instrument of policy than as a friend, had em- 
bittered many, and last of all came the war in which the 
Bulgarians had fought the Russians. But, yes, certainly 
the Bulgarians were Slavs, though it did not supersede the 
fact that they were Bulgarians first. 

And the Soviet, how long would it last? S. was of opin- 
ion that it could not last long. He had reports that Trotsky 
had been arrested and was in prison. Lenin was becoming 
more moderate and the peasants generally were bitterly 
opposed to the Bolshevist regime. But what would follow 
was a problem. It might be chaos or there might be a 
constitutionalist-monarchist revival or even absolutism. 
He inclined to think that a federation might come out of 

See entry for July 17. 



THE KEMALISTS AND THE SOVIET 359 

it, as all the various parts of Russia stood for their own 
autonomy. But no one could say. The Soviet had hoped 
that the Turks would be beaten by the Greeks, as then the 
Turks would call upon the Reds for men as well as for arms, 
but their hopes up to a recent date had been disappointed. 
Did I know that the Soviet and the Kemalists were allied? 
Yes, since March 16. "Well," S. went on, "then you may 
or may not know that Kemal has forbidden Red propa- 
ganda in Asia Minor and has even hanged six Red prop- 
aganda agents. It is only extreme need that could ever 
make him accept Red help as such. He wants, and accepts 
readily, money and arms.'* 

Grozkoff had returned and S. had seen him this morning 
at the little house where we were talking. G. had no polit- 
ical mission from S. He had gone off on a contract for 
tobacco and supplies, had been to Kemal's H.Q., had seen 
and heard many interesting things, but had no political 
negotiations. Kemal had told him that the Greeks might 
beat him, but that he did not mean to be rounded up. He 
would retire to regions where the Greeks could not get at 
him and would continue the war until the Greeks gave in. 
He said that Kemal had 200,000 men. The Bulgarians 
took a certain interest in this war because it was between 
neighbours and it was generally known that there was no 
love lost between Bulgarians and Greeks. Yes, I said, 
everybody here has plenty of enemies. There is Roumania 
with three hostile people on her borders and Bulgaria with 
at least as many. But between that and disturbing the 
peace of Europe was a wide gulf, he said, and he went on to 
assure me of Bulgaria's good intentions. 

Yes, money had been sent to Bulgaria. It had come 
from Constantinople in Turkish pounds. He professed not 
to know much of the Soviet missioners to Varna, and not 
to know Brons-Boroevitch's name. I gave him the details 
which I had learnt and he neither accepted nor rejected 
them. Some Reds had come to Varna, but had imme- 
diately gone off again (after depositing their cash, I im- 
agine). But the Bulgarians were not intriguing with any 



360 BULGARIA 

people and only asked to be left in peace. That is his 
attitude. 

I remarked that after what S. had told me of his past 
relations with the ex-Tsar Ferdinand, I need not press him 
about his supposed intrigues with F. No, indeed, he said, 
after what has passed all Bulgaria is against him. "I won- 
der what the old villain ["sinner," greishnik, Kissimoff 
translated it alternatively] is doing now I" S. did not 
mention the initiative of his Minister at Vienna, as he 
certainly would have done had he felt reason to plead good 
intentions, so I said nothing of it either. 

As for Djevad — he is Djevad Abbas, not Djevad Has- 
san — he was still here and the Government had had no 
communication with him.^ He was under the surveillance 
of the Police. The Bulgarians were always being accused 
of things that they had not done. The War Minister here 
(Dmitroff) had been charged with visiting F., but he had 
not done so. Whom did S. wish me to see while I was here.^ 
I asked. "You can see whom you like," he replied, "but 
be pleased to remember that the Government is always 
attacked, and be sure to realise the motive of criticisms." 

"The great thing in life is to be prepared for death," he 
said. "Every time I go out I ask myself if I shall ever re- 
turn to this house, and so I place in order and on record the 
Government business for the next day so that the functions 
of Government may not be suspended by any fate of mine. 
Yes, one must be prepared for death," he mused, "and 
then one can face events calmly." I was not much taken 
aback by this insecurity that the head of this Bulgarian 
Government feels. There have been too many murders in 
the past to wonder. But I think S, is jumpy. KissimoflF 
said that S. had built this house and now lived here because 
be felt the need of being often alone to ponder over his prob- 
lems. I think, too, that this great Samson of a man — he 
reminds me of Rembrandt's picture and his biceps would 
turn Dempsey green with envy — has assassination on his 

^ Kissimoff had received him as a private person. D. had asked to see S. aod 
had met with a refusal. So M. Kissimoff told me later, i 



THE KING ARRIVES 361 

nerves. When anything drove up to the farm he hastily 
looked out of his built-out window with unconcealed un- 
easiness, and when anyone came upstairs he was palpably 
anxious and went out to see who it was. I expect that 
governing Bulgaria is a fairly wearing duty, and that iron 
muscles may ill-conceal very distraught nerves. He told 
me, as one of his reasons for living here, that he felt the 
need for an hour's gymnastics every day, and I do not 
wonder when I think of his exuberant physique and mas- 
culinity. This curious contradiction in him — his love of 
combat and yet dread of personal consequences — perhaps 
explains partly his position. He is a peasant born and 
bred. He is a Balkan Highlander whose theatre of action 
for preference is the mountain, and with target and broad- 
sword would be an uncommonly ugly customer. He would 
fit perfectly into the picture of Scotland in Mary Stuart's 
days. But steel nerves are better than muscles in these 
days, for the bomb and the pistol make no account of 
muscle and the smallest imbecile may bring down his Goli- 
ath. The particular psychology of S., combined with the 
fear of some countries round of the fighting powers of the 
Bulgarians, who are indeed the Prussians of the Balkans, 
explain much here. Kissimoff told me that they knew well 
whence came the hostile reports of Bulgarian intrigues. 
So do I, but I merely said that they did not originate in 
British sources. No, they did not, K. replied, but they 
were repeated in English papers. "That is why I am here 
to make an independent inquiry," I answered. 

In a dramatic fashion when S. had reached this point of 
his story to me, the King (Boris) was announced. S. did 
not go down to receive him. He just let him come up, sans 
Jaqons. The young King came in. A most striking con- 
trast with his Prime Minister. The King is twenty-seven, 
slight and slim, quite good-looking, with good features, 
grey eyes, and a charming, gentlemanly manner. He sat 
down facing S. and we went on. 

After a few civil remarks from the King, who said that 
he had come on the same mission as I had, namely, to see 



362 BULGARIA 

S., before his departure, I rose to go. But S. had more that 
he wanted to say to me and kept me there for some time 
longer, talking of many matters. He particularly asked 
me to deal with the question of the reparations which per- 
haps were on his mind after Sir Charles Stewart Wilson's 
visit. S. said that he thought the work of a Reparations 
Commission ought not to interfere with the internal 
affairs of an independent country. I replied that it was 
difficult to know where to draw the line since the whole 
duty necessarily interfered with every part of the internal 
administration and had done so in Germany and was doing 
so. King Boris expressed his agreement with this point of 
view. Then S. went on to plead for time in payments and 
gave his arguments in support of his desire, mainly plead- 
ing the fall of the lewa. He made a third point of the 
need of Bulgaria for the economic outlet on the ^gean 
which the Treaty had promised her. The conversation 
went on for about a couple of hours and covered so many 
subjects that I think I will ask Kissimoff to give me his 
recollection of it to check mine. 

I had the curious feeling, on leaving gentle King Boris 
alone with his large and robustious peasant Premier, that 
I was leaving him rather unprotected ! However, I chaffed 
S. and told him that in the Swiss mountains he could 
double his hours devoted to gymnastics. "Yes," he said, 
"and as I steam out of Sofia I shall hft my arms to heaven 
and thank God that I am a free man ! " I thought — patrice 
quis exsul . . . and took my leave. What a strange expe- 
rience! Surely I have been living these two hours in An- 
thony Hope's Ruritanial 

Dined at the hotel. Was famishing, having eaten 
nothing for thirty-six hours. Bulgarian sour milk with 
compote is a dish for the gods. Bulgarian caviare is al- 
most in the same category. From the sublimely fantastic 
to the ridiculously material! 

Thursday, July 28, 1921. Captain J. W. Collins, Times 
correspondent, called before I was dressed. A nice young 
fellow. He thought that GrozkofI had really gone on a 



CAPTAIN COLLINS 363 

sort of contraband mission, in the profits of which mem- 
bers of the Government might have shared. He thinks 
Djevad has left, and says that Reshad Pasha is a more 
dangerous person and is here in the Kemahst interest. 
There is also a Bulgarian who seems to be called Atchkoff, 
who is said to be an agent of the Opposition, here with the 
Turks. Grozkoff's constituency is close to the Turkish 
(old) frontier. C. thinks that Stamboulisky did well in 
seeing Bulgaria through her troubles, and says that there 
has been no trouble at all since the Armistice, but that S. 
has a bad attack of swelled head and often makes violent 
speeches which go beyond what he intended to say. So the 
irreconcileables are out gunning for him, and party feeling 
is very bitter. Collins thinks that there is very little in the 
accusations against Bulgaria. 

Went to the Legation to deliver a letter for Sir A. Peel, 
but as it was Bag day and the Chancery was in the con- 
dition, customary in these cases, of a household expecting 
an addition to the family, I did not ask for H.E. with whom 
I am dining to-night. Saw Kissimoff again and we agreed 
to compare our recollections of the interview of yester- 
day. Tried to see M. Picot, but he is away for a month. A 
pity, as I wanted to size him up. Drove round the town, 
which is not large, but has attractions. It is well situated, 
and the view towards the Rhodope Mountains, over the 
red roofs, and gilded domes of the Orthodox churches, is 
quite fine. There are some good public buildings, notably 
the Sobranje, the Theatre, etc., and they are not preten- 
tious nor over-large. Most of the houses are two-storied, 
the main streets are broad, with a good deal of shade. 
One gets out of the town in any direction in ten minutes 
and can then apparently ride anywhere. There is a club 
and good tennis courts, while the British Legation is quite 
a dignified building, very creditable to the Board of Works, 
far superior to that at Bucharest, at least outside. I am 
told that all Legations are to be built on the Sofia model * 
in future. But this must surely depend on climate, and I 

* The Stockholm model, I am told, is even better. 



864 BULGARIA 

hope that they will choose better sites than they have here. 
The provision of furniture by the Board of Works is a 
great benefit, and I must congratulate Sir Lionel Earle 
upon his handiwork. There are not the Bucharest crowds 
here, and in the best part the streets are broad, well- 
paved, and clean. Whether one can say much for the roads 
elsewhere I am dubious. But on a first impression Sofia 
makes its mark. The great and fine equestrian statue to 
the Russian Tsar-Liberator Alexander dominates all the 
Place in front of the Sobranje. How the Bulgarians can 
have had the face to take up arms against the Russians 
with this memorial in front of them is one of those mys- 
teries that seem almost unfathomable. And with the por- 
trait of Gladstone, it is said, in every peasant's house, they 
fought against us ! Now they have to payer les pots casses 
and they do not like it. 

Spent the afternoon at the Roumanian and Greek Le- 
gations with M. Panourias, Greek Charge d 'Affaires, M. 
Trandafirisco, Roumanian Conseiller de Legation, Colo- 
nel Filimon, the Roumanian Military Attache, and his col- 
leagues, going through the list of Bulgarian iniquities and 
estimating the values of their present military organisations 
and forced labour conscription. I received much evidence 
of the Bulgarian intention to pursue the policy of Prussia 
after Jena. The Bulgars are trying with almost a mini- 
mum of camouflage to do what the Boches have failed to 
do under French activity and constraint, namely, to keep 
up their old Army. They are said to have 60,000 men all 
told instead of the 20,000 agreed under the Treaty; they 
have concealed their war material ; and by this labour con- 
scription they practically have the call to the colours of the 
whole population in their hands. The training of the men 
is said to go on from 1 to 3 a.m. ! The Military Attaches 
tell me that Bulgaria, by her own figures, has a contingent 
of 40,000 men a year, and a total of 856,000 liable to serve. 
All this ought to be suppressed with a firm hand, but the 
Inter-Allied Military Commission under the French Gen- 
eral de Fourtou is said to be trifling with the question, and 



THE LABOUR CONSCRIPTION LAW 365 

the Council of Ambassadors in Paris seems to be poorly 
informed. The Bulgarians are only allowed, for example, 
three cavalry regiments. They have turned the rest of 
their eleven cavalry regiments into a so-called mounted 
gendarmerie. The gendarmes are allowed aviation, ma- 
chine guns, and carrier pigeons! The class is divided into 
20,000 men who serve regularly and 20,000 more who do 
nominally three months' service and are supposed to be 
part of the conscripted labour. One way and another Bul- 
garia is capable of placing a large number of men in the 
field, and I do not think that any soldier can read the La- 
bour Conscription Law without seeing that it is compul- 
sory service thinly veiled. I was also told of Yakovlaff 
Lippovitch and of the Soviet Commissaries Boris Tomski 
and Moes Voleinsk, from Odessa, and who had come to 
Varna in the Tamara motor-launch which left on its return 
journey July 10. One Prodkin, formerly Bulgarian Chief 
of Police, and now Inspector of National Navigation, is 
said to have made many visits to Odessa. 

I told them frankly that their military case seemed to 
me proved, and they gave me photographic copies of re- 
puted actual Bulgarian orders showing the spirit that pre- 
vails and how they are trying to hoodwink the Allies by 
false orders. De Fourtou is accused of being bribed, but I 
rather think it is the policy of his Government to take the 
place of Russia and pose as the protector of Bulgaria. This 
accounts for Picot's fatuous speeches. But, on the political 
side, there is only a lengthy series of accusations with no 
direct proof of actual negotiations with Kemalists or Reds. 
The ill-will and deception which seem proved on the mili- 
tary side show up the political charges, which are numer- 
ous, in a fierce light, and the least we can believe is that the 
Bulgarians have been playing with edged tools. 

Dined at the Legation with my old friend Sir Arthur 
Peel, and Colonel Baird, now Military Attache here and at 
Constantinople. Peel gave us an excellent dinner with good 
wine. We discussed the Balkans all the evening and they 
both threw a flood of fresh light upon the subject. Much 



366 BULGARIA 

talk of personalities and events here. Later Baird went off 
to a dance and Peel told me of his experiences in Brazil 
during the war. Home late. 

Friday, July 29, 1921. Met Baird at the Legation in the 
morning and talked of the Bulgarian Army. He says that 
the Army is down to 20,000 men, but that the Compulsory 
Labour Law will give 36,000 to 40,000 more for a year's 
service which will be passed in barracks, and while he 
supports the Bulgarian contention that they cannot raise 
a Volunteer Army, he regrets the consent of the Supreme 
Council to the Compulsory Labour Law. He is more or 
less philo-Turk, and would give Constant ^ back to the 
Turks, Dedeagatch to the Bulgars, and make an Allied- 
rule zone in Thrace. He does not count the Allied garrison 
at Constant as more than one and a half divisions, and 
would like four to make the thing safer in case of crisis. 
The Russians, he says, are a great danger. They will not 
work and will not go away because they have nowhere to 
go. Wrangel is still with them. 

He says that Atchkoff and Fuad are the chief Kemalist 
agents here now. Protogueroff, a Bulgar retired General, 
is chief of the Macedonian bands. Djevad probably knows 
most of the Thracian bands. There is undoubtedly co- 
operation between these various bands, but not with 
Government initiative or even approval. He thinks that 
there is a regular conspiracy against Bulgaria, and says 
that in these regions a Treaty is merely regarded as a 
jumping-off place for fresh adventures and intrigues, not 
as a permanent settlement. A very true judgement, I 
think. He deplores our propaganda at the end of the war. 
He has some of the leaflets dropped by our airmen, and 
says that they told the Bulgarians that if they stopped 
fighting they would be given the territory that was Bul- 
garian, whereas, what with Macedonia, the Dobrudcha, 
Tsaribrod, Thrace, and other places, nearly as many Bul- 
garians were now under alien rule as there were in Bul- 

^ One gets in the habit of callmg Constantinople by this abbreviated name in 
these parts. 



AUDIENCE WITH KING BORIS 367 

garia herself, and unfortunately all the people in these 
parts were totally devoid of the faculty for conciliation, 
and not one of them could rule over another. We had 
made an old-fashioned peace under false pretences, and he 
would much rather have said vob victis and parcelled out 
gains to the victors without professing high-flown senti- 
ments which facts had refuted. The chief result for us 
was that we had totally lost the prestige which we had 
gained here before and during the war. Baird is like Dun- 
das, a soldier who says what he thinks and does his duty 
without fear or favour. These people are an honour to 
us and it is a pity that our Government does not attend 
to them more. 

At 11 A.M. went to the Palace to see King Boris and 
remained with him till 12.40 p.m. A good-sized house, 
much overcrowded with ex-Tsar Ferdinand's inartistic 
furniture and pictures. His talents seem to have been con- 
fined to architecture wherein atavism must have helped 
him. The room on the stuffy side and H.M. did not sug- 
gest smoking during our talk. We discussed in turn the 
Soviet and Turkish accusations, the state of parties here, 
the question of ex-Tsar Ferdinand, H.M.'s father, of the 
King himself, the internal state of Bulgaria, the bands and 
refugees, the Army, the need for a policy of prudence, the 
distrust of which Bulgaria was the object, the question of 
union with Serbia, and much more. H.M. began in Eng- 
lish, but soon branched into French in which language he 
prefers to talk. 

The King throughout talked with good sense and dis- 
played a greater character and competence than I had ex- 
pected of him. His good looks, rather fragile appearance, 
his diffidence almost amounting to timidity, and his super- 
ficial airs of a petit-maitre, are not the real man. He is no 
drawing-room King, and while he has charm, good man- 
ners, and a deprecating modesty, I should say that he is 
working with sustained assiduity to master the role of 
sovereignty and will soon be superior in statecraft to any 
of his Ministers. I suspect that there is the stuff of a hero 



368 BULGARL4 

behind the courtly manner of the gentle King, but I am 
not quite sure. Time will show. 

He told me that Stamboulisky had described to him our 
talk. He assured me again that all the charges against 
Bulgaria with regard to the Reds and the Turks were 
false. There had been no negotiations. Tobacco and 
cheese were Grozkoff's motives for his trip. With regard to 
Nikolaieff 's mission there were a great many Bulgarians in 
Russia before the war and always had been. Many were 
caught there by the revolution and had been subjected 
to all the pains and penalties of Russians themselves. He 
wished to get them out, and I hope that Benes may help 
him to do so. 

He asked me to consider the position of Bulgaria which 
had suffered dreadfully in a succession of wars and was 
much exhausted. He regretted that at such a moment a 
regular campaign of misrepresentation had been opened 
against her. He said that Bulgaria's enemies conducted 
this propaganda with a thoroughness, pertinacity, and 
absence of measure which Bulgaria could not rival, as she 
had neglected this side of statecraft and had not the 
means of her enemies for conducting it. Bulgaria sheltered 
500,000 refugees from Macedonia, the Dobrudcha, Thrace, 
and Tsaribrod. She was the corridor through which 
passed from West to East and inversely all the uneasy 
spirits of the day. A regular bouillabaisse d'elements 
touches had descended upon her and she was not an island 
like England and could not keep them out. From times 
immemorial fighting had gone on in these regions. The 
wars had increased the savagery of the people, and those 
without work or homes took naturally to fighting as the 
only trade they knew. The bands had even just recently 
attacked in broad daylight a Bulgarian town of 15,000 in- 
habitants — either Shumla or near it — and had then 
retired into the forests with their booty. He deplored the 
Dobrudcha raids, but his Army was so reduced that he 
could not cope with them. The Roumanians had posts of 
twelve men, whereas his posts were only two men. 



BORIS ON A VOLUNTEER ARJVIY 369 

He meant to carry out the Neullly Treaty, but said 
that a Volunteer x\rmy of 33,000 troops and police could 
not be raised for twelve years' service in Bulgaria, and still 
less the officers with twenty years' service. He would 
follow the counsel of the Allies, but hoped that they would 
understand the position. I said that I thought no one 
could unless they came here. The course of events, the 
facts, and the psychology of personaKties here seemed to 
me closed books to our Occidentals. 

He agreed, saying that nothing here resembled the con- 
ditions in Europe. He had a good, laborious, naturally 
quiet people, but the elements of disorder remained. A 
Volunteer Army could be recruited only from ne'er-do- 
weels and then they might become a Pretorian Guard, and 
act for one party or another, probably for the Communists 
like Austria's Army. A Bulgarian peasant would come out 
for a national training for a short time, but not for twelve 
years. Bulgaria had 80,000 men in peace before the war and 
now had to keep order with 20,000, and with many more 
imported disorderly elements in the country. I asked how 
the parties stood in Parliament. He said that Stamboul- 
isky's Agrarian Party had about 120 members out of 240. 
The next largest were the Communists, then came the 
Right or Nationalist Party of Gueshoff and Danieff com- 
bined, then the Democrats, and lastly the small groups of 
Socialists, Radicals, and Democrats. He advised me to see 
not only Gueshoff and Bouroff, but also Stainov who was 
not a Deputy. I asked the King if he had any Council of 
the Crown or elder statesmen to ad\'ise him. No, he said, 
he stood alone. I am told that he goes to see Ministers 
instead of telling them to come and see him, because he 
likes to catch them unprepared with set speeches. He 
knows that this attitude is considered servile, but it edu- 
cates him by making him conversant with the machinery 
of the departments. Later on he will assert more regal 
authority, and as Governments change he will naturally 
inherit authority as the only stable element and the de- 
positary of traditious and consecutive policy. He told me 



370 BULGARIA 

that he was endeavouring to see Opposition leaders from 
time to time, but it was difficult, as all sorts of rumours at 
once flew about, and the practice was not much liked by 
the Government. 

Then I told H.M. that I was going to be indiscreet. I 
had not said much to Stamboulisky about H.M.'s father, 
but I wanted to tell H.M. that the dragging of his father's 
name into the list of supposed iniquities of Bulgaria prej- 
udiced her cause and should be glad if he would explain 
to me how the case stood. The King's manner at once 
changed and he displayed deep feeling. He told me how 
much statecraft he had learnt from him. He had been 
allowed to see all that went on from the coulisses and it 
had been a great education to him. When the break came, 
he felt that the only course in Bulgaria's interest was to 
make it a real break, and had consequently had no more 
direct relations with his father. This had been a great 
grief to him, but he felt instinctively that F. understood. 
He would have heard in some roundabout way had it 
been otherwise. He had only broken the rule when his 
Uncle Philip had died. Then he had sent a telegram of 
sorrow and condolence. He had not signed it Boris, but 
some other name which I did not quite catch. P. had 
replied to him in a kindred spirit and had signed by the 
name which he used when travelling and when he wished 
to remain incognito — the Marquis de Something, I think. 
There it had ended, and there had been no direct communi- 
cation since. Even greater was the deprivation of the com- 
panionship of his sisters. He was devoted to them, and 
they always looked up to their elder brother for advice and 
guidance.^ He spoke of them with deep feeling and came 
near to tears. The whole of this part of his conversation 
was most impressive and dignified, as well as pathetic. I 
could not help saying that his sentiments did him honour, 
and that I wished that the world could have listened as he 
spoke since the burden of kingship would have appealed 
to the hearts of all. 

1 I saw a portrait of one of them at Vranja later. She must be quite lovely. 
Her name is Eudoxia, I think. 



THE STAMP EPISODE 371 

After a little pause he went on to say that he well knew 
the distrust which Bulgaria inspired. It could be met only 
by fair dealing and a policy of great reserve. This was not 
much in the manner of the Bulgarian who in political 
affairs was a plain speaker, and a hard hitter, even violent 
at times. But people here were beginning to come round 
to him and to adopt this policy. As for any attempt to 
flout the Treaty or attack neighbours, he considered it 
madness and it could only be regarded as harakiri. There 
was Serbia with a million and a half of soldiers, Rou mania 
with as many, and Greece with 800,000 or 900,000 mobil- 
iseable men. What could Bulgaria do against them.'^ I 
said that she could do nothing, and would only imperil her 
destinies and her existence if she tried to fight them. 

There had been much talk, he said, about a union with 
Serbia. But there were memories and hates that rankled 
deeply, and he said that before union with other people 
came up, it would be well to see whether these same people 
could effect their own unity. I said, Yes, the Serbian 
Constitution has been fudged, but nearly as many mem- 
bers opposed or did not vote as supported Pachitch. There 
was never such a thing known in the initial vote of a Con- 
stitution of a country. Also it must be remembered that 
there is the dynastic question to be considered. 

The King invited me to visit Vranja and asked me to 
telephone to the Marechal de la Cour Courtoklieff when I 
wanted a car. There was an English gardener there called 
Delmar and he would show me round. I accepted with 
thanks. He also suggested other trips, but I said that I 
was leaving on Monday night and had so many people to 
see that I could only hope to see a gallery and museum 
or two. He telephoned to the P.O. to get the directors 
of these places to show me round. He also explained the 
stamp episode to me. An order for stamps given to Ger- 
many before the war had only recently been executed. 
They had the ex-Tsar F.'s head on them, and several had 
pictures of places now Serbian. Owing to the exigencies of 
finance, and by the thoughtless act of a P.-O. subordinate. 



372 BULGARIA 

these stamps had been recently placed in circulation. 
They naturally seemed to justify all sorts of rumours, but 
they had been almost immediately withdrawn. H.M. had 
not seen the Bulgarian postcard with Kemal's photo. An 
interesting talk which left a most favourable impression 
on me. A sympathetic figure and a great asset to Bulgaria. 

After lunching with Captain Colhns and his Bulgarian 
wife I took this diary to the F.O. and went through my 
Stamboulisky conversation with M. Kissimoff. His recol- 
lection of it required me to make only two or three minor 
changes in my text. He went on with me to the Museum 
where are most interesting Thracian sculptures, including 
many of the "Rider of Thrace," a sort of legendary St. 
George; many little bas-reliefs of the Three Graces, all 
showing Greek influence; icons and iconostases; many 
Roman, and also Bulgarian antiquities, with strong evi- 
dence of Scythian, Byzantine, and Ionian art; a fine set of 
coins, some fair bronzes, and a wonderfully fine hard red 
sandstone bas-relief of a man feeding a dog, dating 500 B.C. 
If only Bulgaria would keep quiet for a few years, her 
artistic history would be of great interest. It is in the 
churches and monasteries that one will best study it. 

The Director of the Press came to see me at 5.30 at the 
hotel and we had coffee and a talk. I told him what I 
thought of the position here. There is a censorship of the 
press, but not of foreign telegrams, he told me. 

Then went on to call on General de Fourtou whom I 
found to be quite a difiFerent person from what I had ex- 
pected, and his information destroyed my best hope of 
being able to confirm English criticisms of Bulgaria on 
the military side. De Fourtou is not a Le Rond by any 
means. He is a bright, intelligent, and very alert French- 
man of a good type who declares that he is not a French- 
man here, but an Inter-Allied General who proposes to tell 
the truth as he sees it and to endeavour to administer jus- 
tice impartially. The Little Entente States assure him that 
Bulgaria has 64,000 men under arms. He is positively con- 
vinced that she has not more than 33,000 soldiers and 



TALK WITH GENERAL DE FOURTOU 373 

police and at the outside may have 3000 more to keep her 
numbers filled. The Reparations Commission can check 
exactly all expenses, and men could not be kept without 
being paid for. 

We happened to get on to the subject of the papers 
which I have on misleading the Allies by false returns, 
and on the subject of Bulgaria's supremacy in the Balkans 
which is the main cue of another supposed paper by the 
present Bulgarian C.G.S. De Fourtou had received copies 
of both, as I had, and had showed them to the Bulgarian 
War Office and asked for an explanation. They promptly 
and decidedly declared them both to be forgeries. The 
paper about false reports dates from 1919 when Lupcheff 
was C.G.S. He was in Paris at the named date. The paper 
is not recognised and is countersigned by an officer who 
was never at the W.O. and is described as not of a rank 
conformable with that of an officer who would countersign 
a C.G.S.'s orders. The paper of July 12, the W.O. say, is 
not of a serial number known at the W.O, here, who offer 
to open their archives to any inspection and demand pro- 
duction of the original. Further, the heading given of 
"Chief of the General Staff" is never used. The heading 
used is "General Staff" only. They also say that no 
papers are signed on fete days such as was July 12, the 
date of the order. ^ This seems pretty damning, and I 
shall have to talk to the Military Attaches very straight 
when I meet them at the Greek Legation to-morrow. 
They are sure to have acted in good faith, I think, but if 
the W.O. are right they have been deceived by a forger. 

I said to de Fourtou that this was a very serious matter, 
and that if the Allies did not look out they would land 
themselves in another Dreyfus case which would be hell. 
F. said that he had made the same remark to his Chief of 
Staff yesterday, and that the cases much resembled each 
other. F. had told them that he could not produce the 

* I later inspected the original again with the Little Entente people. The 
date was in Bulgarian and rather blurred. We were not agreed whether it waa 
June or July. 



374 BULGARIA 

original, and admitted a mere copy or a photo was no 
proof. I said that I had seen the original, but did not 
know whether it could be produced, as the production 
might give away the agent who had abstracted the paper, 
or said he had. This wants a bit of thinking over. Will tell 
Peel in the morning, and then, if the Little Entente people 
have not already been told, will tell them and see what 
they think of the matter. We must put ourselves right in 
this matter, and promptly. 

De Fourtou is already convinced that there is a dead 
set by the Little Entente against Bulgaria. I have been 
gradually reaching an identical conclusion. He says that 
his proposal to Paris about voluntary versus compulsory 
service has been a via media. He thinks that Bulgaria can 
get some 3000 volunteers out of her present Army, and 
perhaps 5000 a year thereafter. So in six years she may get 
her 33,000 men. He proposes to fill up the first year with 
men drawn by lot for four years' service. I told him that I 
agreed with this plan which I thought good and suitable. 
But Paris wired yesterday — the Council of Ambassadors 
— refusing the plan and tying down Bulgaria to a Volun- 
teer Army. Moreover, Paris has foolishly accepted the 
Forced Labour Law with minor modifications in Articles 
10 and 12, which do not change the main lines of the Act. 
De Fourtou and I agree that this is a serious mistake. So 
do all the Little Entente people. 

As for war material, F. admits that some twenty guns 
may remain hidden — not more — but that the rifles will 
never be given up and there may be 80,000 to 100,000 left. 
The Serbs say 140,000. F. thinks that "sanctions" to ex- 
tract them may be a remedy worse than the disease, for the 
Little Entente may enter Bulgaria and never leave. Each 
State wants something and who will put them out? I 
agreed, and said that I did not think that the rifles 
mattered. Even if they were given up, the Bulgarians 
could import them again later, as all Eastern Europe was 
stiff with rifles. It is a great pity that Baird went off to 
Constantinople to-day. Only yesterday he thought that 



WHY OUR SECRETS GET OUT 375 

the first of the secret papers was the most damning evi- 
dence of all of Bulgarian duplicity. There is hardly a leg 
left to stand on in the case against Bulgaria now, so far as 
proofs go. There is little left but suspicion and prejudice. 
This conviction stole over me after my examination of 
the E.G. dossier at Bucharest, but I have been insensibly 
trying to make it all accord with the English charges. 
These supposed forgeries, if they are proved, ruin the 
case on the military side, even if it remains true that Bul- 
garia wishes to retain compulsory service and has hidden 
many arms. 

F. said that the atmosphere here was highly charged 
with electricity and that we were *' en plein pays balkan- 
ique." Yes, I said, in the mountains of the moon, and the 
psychology could not be understood unless one came here. 
He had told Foch the same thing. We agreed that the 
Bulgarians were trying to camouflage their forces and 
arms, but also agreed, as others have agreed, that we 
should do the same in their place. He said that directly 
he received a report of concealed arms he sent it on imme- 
diately, straight from his desk, to his Italian colleague in 
charge of the armaments branch, but the latter always 
found the Bulgarians warned before he could act. It had 
been necessary to employ Bulgarians in the Commission 
and these people doubtless warned their friends. As for 
rifles, he could not deny that many were needed to pro- 
tect peasants and farmers against bandits and wild beasts. 
Everybody was armed in this part of the world. I said 
that it all resembled a Drury Lane melodrama, and that 
as one emerged from the gorges onto the Sofia plateau one 
really entered a different world. Yes, and two hundred 
years behind ours, said F. 

Saturday, July 30, 1921. In the morning went off for 
the Little Entente Conference at 11 a.m. Met at the 
Greek Legation M. Panourias, the Charge d'Affaires, and 
the Military Attaches of Roumania, Serbia, and Greece. 
Of these a new hand to me was Colonel Neditch, the 
Serbian whom I had heard of as a capable man and so 



376 BULGARIA 

found him to be. His assistant, Commandant Vafeas, was 
also there. Colonel Joanidis, the Greek Military Attach^, 
I had also not met before. I told them all at once that 
there was a fait nouveau and informed them of de Four- 
tou's action and of the Bulgarian reply. It seemed to me 
that the only thing to be done was to test the accuracy of 
the incriminating reports and to abandon trust in them if 
their falsity was proved. It was impossible to build up a 
charge on forgeries, and I reminded them of the Agram 
trials and the Dreyfus case. Neditch at once said bluntly 
that a forgery would ruin the whole case, but neither 
Filimon nor Joanidis committed himself. Panourias, how- 
ever, declared that of course the Bulgars denied every- 
thing. They always did, he said, and he began to bring out 
a lot of other papers on new subjects. I would not listen 
to him, and insisted that we should have out the two 
queried papers and examine them. We looked over the 
12th July paper and there was a difference of opinion 
whether the Bulgarian original was June or July. I 
thought it was June, but opinions differed. We had a 
discussion, and then I begged Panourias to forgive me for 
saying what, as an old Intelligence officer, I should do. I 
should see my agent safely over the frontier and then 
place the original of the document before the Bulgarians 
and play a straight game by them. The inquiry which 
they had offered should be facilitated. The other docu- 
ment P. could not find for a time, but it is really in the 
same category. Copies of these papers were both shown 
to me at Bucharest where naturally they had influenced 
opinion. It seems that four agents — one French — have 
been murdered here in the last ten days for spying, so the 
game is a little warm. 

P. packed me up a lot of new papers which I said that 
I would call for later and then excused myself for having 
to go off to see M. Dmitroff, the War Minister, who had 
fixed 12.15 for a talk. I asked Panourias what he was 
going to do. He said that he would do nothing. I said that 
it was not my affair, it was his, and I excused myself for 



TALK WITH M. DMITROFF 377 

speaking so plainly to him. He was the best Judge of 
what action he should take. 

Met Dmitroff with the Chief of the Press Bureau to 
translate. I forgot to warn him that I had not come for 
official replies. He knew nothing of the papers — de Four- 
tou must have taken them to the Chief of Staff — said that 
he was reducing the Army by another 4000 men, and hoped 
to keep order with the rest. He expressed himself deter- 
mined to put down the bands and said that he had been 
condemned to death by the Macedonian Committee ^ for 
the action which he had already taken. Political life in the 
Balkans can be many things, but can never be dull. He 
only allowed that a few arms might have been taken by the 
peasants during the retreat, and on the whole was too pre- 
cisely official for the conversation to be worth continuing, 
so I took my leave. None of this peasant Government can 
speak any foreign tongue. We cannot speak theirs. So all 
the materials for misconceiving each other's minds exist. 

I was due to lunch with Panourias at the Union Club, 
and there found Filimon and Neditch with him again. P. 
informed me at once that after my departure they had dis- 
cussed their course of action and had unanimously decided 
to meet my views. He was going to take the original of the 
document to de Fourtou to-day, as they had decided that 
it was the correct step. I said that I was very glad. We 
discussed the general situation. Panourias said that the 
withdrawal of the Compulsory Labour Act was of primary 
importance and I said that I agreed. The way these repre- 
sentatives of the Little Entente hate Bulgaria is a caution. 
They detest her for her past political crimes from which 
they have all suffered, and abominate her for the cruelties 
and indignities which her men heaped upon their prisoners 
during the war. Neditch said that the Bulgars had exter- 
minated whole districts which they had intended to Bul- 
garianise and annex. They had killed all the intellectuals 
and men of mark and one hundred and eighty priests. The 
mere idea of being friendly with Bulgaria would make ev- 

* Dmitrofif and all his companions were murdered in October. 



878 BULGARIA 

ery Serb's hair bristle. Panourias had already given me a 
very long list of recent Bulgarian raids into Greece. Fili- 
mon was no less hostile, but they all said that the Bulgar 
was a brave soldier in attack and defence and wonderfully 
obedient. They all agreed that the term "Prussian of the 
Balkans" was a true one. I asked why they seemed to 
fear such a little people. "We could, any one of us," they 
replied, "crush her now, but this is not the question. What 
we all know for certain and by tragic experience is that on 
the first occasion that we are engaged elsewhere Bulgaria 
will be stabbing us in the back. So it is our duty to render 
her harmless. " 

I happened to mention that I hoped to motor out to 
Vranja on Sunday. Filimon said that the wife of his Min- 
ister had two bombs thrown at her car as she drove there 
to see the King about ten days ago : joy-riding with com- 
pensations. Neditch told us a story to exemplify Bulgarian 
ferocity. In one of the wars the Serbs and Bulgarians were 
acting together against the Turks. Two columns, one Serb 
and one Bulgarian, were advancing together on parallel 
roads, each covered by cavalry which were in touch. Ne- 
ditch was with the Serb Cavalry on the left. It was a strict 
rule of the Serbs that no rifle was to be fired on service 
except against the enemy. He heard many shots on his 
right and rode off to see what it was. He found that the 
Bulgars had coolly shot down every Turk — unarmed 
civilians — whom they met on the road. This happened 
constantly during the march, and at last Neditch rode over 
to expostulate. " Why make a fuss.'' There is one Turk the 
less," was all the answer he got. At last on the thirteenth 
occasion he rode over and told the Bulgars that they would 
be banned by Europe for their shameless murder of harm- 
less civilians. "What do you expect?" was the reply, "we 
are making war, and to make war is to kill your enemies." 
I do not feel sure that the Bulgars deserved to be the 
special pets of our Radicals for so many years. 

Dined with Peel at the Legation. He had kindly asked 
Drs. Gueshoff and Majaroff to meet me. The former was 



DRS. GUESHOFF AND MAJAROFF 379 

formerly Prime Minister, and the latter Foreign Minister 
and also Minister in London where we had met. Both are 
steady and experienced men and talk English fluently. 
They are among the most prominent members of the 
Opposition groups. Gueshoff is quite old. If Stamboul- 
isky had taken Majaroff into his Cabinet to manage 
foreign policy he would have done better. We had a most 
pleasant give-and-take talk on Bulgarian affairs. They 
think Stamboulisky will not last long, as he is too violent 
and his speeches too unrestrained and braggart. His party 
are said to be tiring of him. Gueshoff contemplates an 
alliance with the Democrats and expects a great change of 
votes at the next election. Peel does not think that a 
Ministry can last long when it has all the intellectuals and 
the brains of the country opposing it. 

The two Bulgarian authorities both affirm that Stam- 
boulisky knows nothing of foreign political affairs and is 
rash and adventurous. He has probably not intended to 
make treaties with the Turks or Soviets, but has been 
playing with fire, desiring to pose as a great Panjandrum, 
and has been quite surprised at having alarmed Europe. 
We discussed the Grozkoff and Nikolaieff missions. It is 
quite possible that the former was only sent for loot by 
some of his friends here. As to Russia, there are some 
200,000 Bulgarians there and the interest of Bulgaria in 
their fate is legitimate. The Bulgarians could all under- 
stand Russian. They were small traders, market gardeners, 
professional men, etc. Gueshoff asked me how Bulgaria 
was thought of by the countries round. I said that a frank 
answer to that question would be that the Bulgarians were 
detested by the neighbouring States on account of their 
cruelty and indignities to prisoners, and that they were 
feared because it was believed that they would seize the 
first opportunity to attack their neighbours and stab them 
in the back when they were engaged with some other 
enemy. Gueshoff said that he had been in charge of the 
Red Cross, and had constantly urged the importance of 
the kindest treatment of prisoners. Bulgaria had even 



380 BULGARIA 

demanded an inquiry into the treatment of prisoners, but 
the States round her had rejected trhe proposal. 

It seems that Bulgaria is still under the influence of the 
change made during Ferdinand's time in Article 17 of the 
Constitution. This change enables the Government to 
sign a Treaty without submitting it to the Sobranje unless 
it contains financial clauses. Peel says that this change, 
when made, caused much distrust of Ferdinand in Russia. 
Some talk of the older Balkan times and Gueshoff prom- 
ises me his book ^ about the period. They are dubious 
about Serbia's new Kingdom, and consider that the differ- 
ence of religion of its main components, the desire of the 
parts for autonomy, and their dislike of the Belgrade 
centralisation, will hold things up. They do not much be- 
lieve in a Bulgar-Serb combination, on account of pre- 
vailing bitterness, but do count a pacification with Rou- 
mania as among things open to them. The possibility of 
the marriage of King Boris with a Roumanian Princess is 
frequently discussed. Majaroff said that Boris would prob- 
ably look first to the political interest of Bulgaria in his 
marriage and I think he will, as his sense of duty appears 
so strong. M. said that Boris's qualities were those of his 
mother. But I cannot refuse a tribute to Ferdinand for 
his judicious architectural and other improvements at the 
Capital. I like Sofia. The position is really wonderful, and 
there is a great charm about the little place, even if, off the 
main streets, one gets into impossible roads and shambling 
houses, almost bazaars. The climate is far preferable to 
Bucharest and the nights are cool. There are few flies, and 
though our Legation is in the dog-barking zone, my hotel 
here is out of it. Sofia, to Bucharest, is what the hills are 
to the plains in India and I am hating my return to the 
plains. 

After Peel's guests had gone, we talked of the applica- 
tion of "sanctions" to Bulgaria to compel her to adopt 
voluntary service and disarm. Peel was against sanctions 
and said that Colvin, head of our Reparations Commis- 

* He sent it to me next day and I found it very interesting. 



SANCTIONS AGAINST BULGARIA 381 

sion, would deplore them. I said that I agreed. The con- 
spiracy against Bulgaria by the Little Entente was ob- 
viously continuing in London and Paris and seemed to me 
a real danger. If the Little Entente entered Bulgaria, they 
would arouse all the uneasy spirits of the Balkans, and 
would then each take its slice of the Bulgarian cake and 
eat it. We should never get them out, for they were allies 
and would support each other, so the remedy was worse 
than the disease. I thought that de Fourtou's plan for the 
Army here was serviceable, and I did not think that we 
should worry about the concealed arms, as it was really 
quite a trifling matter. What really mattered was the 
Compulsory Labour Law and I supposed that the P.O. 
did not understand it. There is, however, some indication 
that France is behind Bulgaria, as Picot's speeches have 
proved, and that France's object is to use Bulgaria for the 
rape of Thrace from Greece in order to support France's 
designs and finance in Turkey. This was troublesome, 
and complicated the situation. I thought that the Great 
Powers should issue a warning to all concerned that they 
intended to see the terms of the Treaties carried out with 
rigid precision and would not permit any changes in ex- 
isting territorial arrangements. Our real trouble in these 
parts seemed to me the failure to enforce the Sevres Treaty. 
This weakness had allowed every confessed and uncon- 
fessed ambition in the Balkans to revive. Peel is to talk it 
over with Colvin in the morning. He leaves for home 
August 15. 

Sunday, July 31, 1921. M. Petco Stainov, son-in-law of 
M. Majaroff, and the man whom the King wished me to 
see, came round this morning, bringing a copy of Gues- 
hofF's book on Balkan affairs. I asked him to give me a 
brief sketch of the situation as he saw it. He told me that 
the news was out this morning of the decision of Paris 
about restricting Bulgaria to a Volunteer Army, and that 
it had created great anxiety among the best people, for 
they did not know how such an army could be formed, nor 
the gendarmerie which was at present also on a compulsory 



S82 BULGARIA 

basis, and, failing these, they did not know how order 
could be preserved in the country. The position of the 
King, he thought, would become very difficult. I agreed 
that it might be hard to raise the Army, but said at the 
same time that not much real effort to raise the Army had 
been made. Stainov writes in the Mir, Majarofl's paper. 

Turning to the general situation, he said that Bulgaria 
was suffering from an exaggerated fit of democracy. The 
mass of the people were extremely Left, almost Sovietic, 
but obviously the extreme Bolshevist ideas, including ex- 
propriation of land and goods, could not be applied to a 
nation of small peasant proprietors. The people were tired 
of war and disillusioned by its results. They were finding 
that their political ideals could not be carried out and they 
owed the Agrarians and Stamboulisky a grudge in conse- 
quence. The Agrarians had definitely excluded all people 
from government except themselves, and so the Opposition 
had all the brains, culture, experience, and knowledge. 
Except the Minister of Commerce, no Minister could 
speak a word of any language but his own. Even at the 
Foreign Office there were only four or five men who knew 
any foreign language. The best men dropped out because 
they found that their knowledge and aptitudes were rather 
sneered at than esteemed. There was therefore no call to 
them to stay when their pay was only some one thousand 
lewa a month — say four pounds. 

He regarded Stamboulisky as having passed the zenith 
of his power. His influence was now on the decline. The 
best peasants had seen that they wanted more than their 
leaders could give them. The party suffered from lack of 
experience in all walks of political life, and this was partic- 
ularly noticeable in foreign affairs of which they did not 
know the rudiments. Stainov did not dislike Stamboul- 
isky, and thought that his aim was sincere. He did not 
imagine for a moment that he had intended to make a 
treaty with the Kemahsts or the Reds. Had he so intended 
he would have selected one of the very numerous Bul- 
garians at Constantinople who went about with a fez in 



GROZKOFF'S MISSION 383 

almost Turkish dress so as not to suffer at Turkish hands, 
spoke Turkish, had many Turkish friends, and could have 
slipped over to Asia Minor without attracting any notice. 
Grozkoff was a peasant and wore peasant dress with 
baggy trousers and a broad red scarf round his tummy. It 
was enough to look at him and speak to him to realise his 
unsuitability for his supposed mission. But he was rather 
proud of the stir that he had made in the world, and it 
seems that he crossed in a boat which took over to Kemal 
a French political agent formerly with General Wrangel. 
S. thought that Grozkoff had really gone on business, as 
he was a leading light of the Consortium. 

Stamboulisky, thought S., was a most quaint character. 
He Mas highly strung, could never sit still, and never 
looked one in the face.^ He was afflicted with manias. 
One was for travel, and he had been all over the place at 
home and abroad. The question was now less whether 
Stamboulisky would fall, but rather who would succeed 
him. However, we have heard this often about other 
P.M.'s, and they are not so easily displaced when they have 
a working majority. 

I went on to see M. Panourias and to get the rest of the 
papers from him. He has, to my vexation, ratted since 
yesterday, and did not take the original of the dubious 
paper to de Fourtou. I made no remarks, as I had already 
given my views, and Sir A. Peel had approved of them 
last night. P. went on to say that Allied officers had been 
killed here, besides several agents, and that sixty persons 
were on a list for assassination, so it was a serious matter 
to put himself forward. There was nothing to be said in 
reply to this argument. He has quite a mania for secret 
reports and thinks more of their damaging effect than of 
their origin and authenticity. We had an hour's talk over 
Balkan affairs. Panourias has been very active and useful 
and I am much indebted to him. 

The King's car came for me in the afternoon with his 
Private Secretary and we motored out twelve kilometres 

* This is not noticeable when one converses with him throueb an interpreter. 



384 BULGARIA 

to Vranja, the ex-Tsar Ferdinand's creation and favourite 
abode. A park some few kilometres square, with woods, 
ponds, gardens, and farm, all created in the last fifteen 
years. A house in old Bulgarian style, specially attractive 
at the back, as the front is much shut in by woods, and the 
front door has a hideous glass and iron hot-house sort of a 
place for entrance. Mr. Delmar, in general charge of the 
place and gardens, whose mother was English and father 
Spanish, met us and kindly took us round. There is a Tyr- 
olese Alpine gardener who has had many successes. Some 
good rock-gardens. The cows turned out to be Swiss. Bul- 
garian cattle are poor eating and the cows give little milk, 
they say. I am told that there are some white water- 
buffalo, very rare, but we did not come across them. The 
inside of the house very German. Each room a different 
style. The most successful is the Russian dining-room all 
in light wood resembling rosewood. A portrait in icon 
style of the King's mother, large in size, was a striking and 
even superb work, and there was a good deal of interest of 
one sort or another. The Victoria Regia house, with its 
huge water-lilies from the Amazon and the Ganges, quite a 
feature: the tray-shaped leaves some six feet broad. Going 
back I was pointed out the many empty spaces in the town 
where various fine public buildings had been planned, but 
not begun owing to the wars. Sofia would have been quite 
a fine town by now had i>eace reigned since 1912. 

The P.S. told me that the King did not think that mar- 
riage festivities accorded at all with the sufferings of his 
people. He is twenty-seven, but prefers to wait. He led a 
lonely life. There was only his small personal staff at the 
Palace. He drove himself out to Vranja most evenings 
about 6 P.M. Ferdinand preferred to live at Vranja. Bul- 
garian was the King's mother tongue. He was popular 
with the people, sharing in all their life and visiting their 
cottages. He was a real democratic King and much more 
popular than Ferdinand who would never condescend to 
be near his people. 

Monday ^ August 1, 1921. Made some farewell visits, and 



TALK WITH THE SERBIAN MINISTER 385 

amongst others saw M. Raditch, the Serbian Minister, 
with whom I had a fruitful talk. He told me that he had 
been much impressed at first by Stamboulisky, who was 
much more interesting to talk to when one knew Bulgarian, 
as he was a fine speaker with a happy faculty for phrases 
and seemed sincere. He was rather brutal than mealy- 
mouthed, in order to give the full effect of his meaning. 
But in time R. lost faith in S.'s sincerity and thought it 
only a pose. S. had endeavoured to come to some arrange- 
ment with Belgrade, and had visited R. on the subject. 
S. had later denied that he had had the conversation or 
had even visited Raditch, though witnesses had seen him 
there! What S. had said to R. was that the Black Sea 
ports alone were no good to Bulgaria nor the Adriatic ports 
alone to Serbia, and that the two States should combine 
to sweep down to the ^Egean. That was S.'s view, but 
Raditch could not recall on word favourable to Serbia and 
was persuaded that when Bulgaria had gained Thrace she 
would then turn against Serbia and attack her. 

Yes, S. had nerves, and the Macedonians, who secretly 
ruled Bulgaria, were the cause. There were some 200,000 
in Bulgaria, but the really dangerous part of them was the 
extreme revolutionary party which numbered some 10,000 
men. They influenced all Bulgarian life. They thought 
nothing of murdering a man. They had murdered ten 
people during the past month, and not in one case had the 
murderers been caught. S. had told R. that he meant to 
dispose of them in a month or two. "How will you do it.''" 
asked R. "By knocking some thirty of the leaders on the 
head, then the rest will keep quiet." Kemal, by the way, 
had asked the comitajis to concentrate upon Thrace and 
not Macedonia. Very sound from his point of view. 

S. did not hesitate to strike when it was in his interest. 
He had addressed a Congress of his party this year and had 
told them that they had overcome some of their enemies. 
"We have knocked the Army on the head [assommS was 
the word used by R. to me] and then the Church in this 
Sodom and Gomorrah of a town Sofia. We have turned 



.386 BULGARIA 

the priests out and sent them up the mountains to be 
nearer God. But there is still danger, and at the first warn- 
ing you must enter the village, seize your enemies, and then 
*the stick to the head'" (a Bulgarian saying, but for a 
Premier a trifle terse). 

R. did not consider that the Government was really 
constitutional. It was a tyranny and S. mocked at the 
Constitution and did as he pleased. The famous Article 4 
of the Law on the National Catastrophe was a political 
weapon in his hand. So long as his enemies kept quiet, 
nothing was done, but directly they gave trouble they 
could be arrested under this article, thrown into prison, 
and their goods be sequestrated. It was no wonder that 
the Allies had protested or that the money of richer men 
had left the country and that the lewa had fallen. R. 
thought that S. would probably meet with a violent death. 
The Agrarian Party was organised better than any other 
except the Communists. The bourgeois parties were less 
well-organised and fought among themselves. When S. 
had asked the Reparations Commission for time to pay, 
owing to the fall of the lewa, the Commission had agreed 
with the proviso that Article 4, and the Consortium which 
was hampering commerce, should be withdrawn or sus- 
pended. The Consortium was a Government buying and 
selling machine. It was useful to S., as he rewarded his 
political friends by posts in it. But they knew little of com- 
merce and so found much wheat unsold and so on. The 
system was a handicap to the country and was best left to 
merchants who understood it. S. survived, for one reason, 
because he never let it be known where he was going nor 
when. It was his chief precaution, and he was well-guarded. 
M. Raditch gave me copies of the Kemal postcard supposed 
to have been ofl5cially printed here, and Colonel Neditch, 
whom I saw afterwards, showed me the distribution list 
for the copies of it which were sent out, or to be sent out, 
by the Ministry of the Interior. There were 300,000 to go 
to Western Thrace and so on. The cards were to be sold 
at a high price to sympathisers and the money was to go to 



SIR C. WILSON ON REPARATIONS 387 

Kemal. I wonder how much cash would ever have reached 
the latter! I think the matter was arranged by Atchkoff 
and Djevad Abbas. I gave one copy to M. Kissimoff who 
wanted to trace the ^provenance of the card, and asked him 
to send it on to King Boris who had never seen it and to 
whom I had promised a, copy if I got hold of one. He also 
told me the story of the quinine reported stolen from Bul- 
garian stores and traced to Kemal. Raditch is a compe- 
tent and well-informed Minister, well worth consulting. 

In the afternoon I saw Sir Charles Wilson. He said that 
the Reparations Commission could not balance the Bul- 
garian Budget if Voluntary Service were introduced, as it 
was too costly. I found that his ideas and mine were in 
accord, and he says that Colvin has identical views. The 
only difference between us is that Sir Charles thinks that 
the Bulgarians have made a serious attempt to introduce 
Voluntary Service and that I am not sure that they have. 
They made a great splash about it some time ago and sent 
deputies round to propagandise. There was a statement 
that 6000 offers of service had come in. What happened 
then is uncertain, but from one cause or another the returns 
of men enlisted grew smaller and smaller, until it app>eared 
that only three hundred men had actually joined the Army. 
Sir C. thinks that a Volunteer Army may be formed some 
day, but is at present contrary to the custom of the people. 
It would make it possible for coups d'Stat to take place, and 
even for Communism or Bolshevism to develop. The situ- 
ation here was evidently not understood at Paris. He 
thought the Bulgars a good steady people, not attractive, 
but very well-behaved to foreigners. The Agrariaa Gov- 
ernment are babies; not clever babies, but cunning babies. 
They walk straight into any traps set to catch them. They 
had tried to keep a thick mattress between the Commission 
and the facts, but had been forced to give up this practice. 

His view is that no permanent peace will result until 
Thrace is returned to Bulgaria and Macedonia is made 
independent. He has been in Thrace and says that the 
country is full of Greek troops, but that no people have an 



S88 BULGARIA 

absolute majority there. He declares that the French can 
no longer be considered our allies. They are always work- 
ing against us. He says that the Bulgarians want our sup- 
port and would prefer it to any other. There are three 
Frenchmen here and they are all antagonistic, Picot the 
French Minister, Cerisey on the Reparations Commission, 
who is senior to Picot and finds the latter above him here, 
and a third, whose name I forget, who did a curious service 
for some highly placed person at home and has been re- 
warded by a sinecure here, namely, the patronage of 
French holders of Bulgarian bonds. They unite only in 
opposing de Fourtou, who has the best house of the lot and 
gives himself airs, they say. 

Left for Bucharest at night and arrived late on Tuesday 
evening. A motor-car met me the other side of the Danube 
and jolted me back safely. Bucharest uninhabitable on 
account of the curiously exhausting heat. This part of the 
world is not a white man's country during July and August, 
Irak and the Sudan are refreshing in comparison. 

Wednesday, August 3, 1921. Managed to get tickets and 
sleeper for Paris for to-morrow. They make one pay in 
French francs, and the amount much exceeds what one is 
allowed to take out of France in French money. So one has 
to buy French money from the smugglers or get no seat! 
A new and amusing form of robbery, but the traveller gets 
fleeced at every step in the East of Europe. Lunched with 
Colonel Terbutt, Colonel Lebert, and M. Strauss, who are 
pretty sick at the failure of their mission here, and are 
most severe upon Roumanian dishonesty. However, Mr. 
Adams, our Commercial Attache, told me in the afternoon, 
during a visit which I paid to him and his wife, that he 
could give a dozen good reasons why they failed, of which 
the Reschitsa case, though the chief reason, was only one. 

Adams says that even if the different price of the English 
and German locomotives were as 14 to 8, it still remained 
true that the English loco was twenty per cent a better 
article. It was for this reason that the English had almost 
the monopoly of railway construction and plant through- 



TWO CLEMENCEAU STORIES 389 

out the world, and it would not pay us to cut costs if it 
entailed reducing the quality. A sound view, I am sure. 
I talked to Adams about my favourite barter scheme and 
he said that others desired it and that if anyone could 
manage it the Co-operative Wholesale Association in Eng- 
land could. But they and others had failed before the 
practical diflSculties of getting the Roumanian goods — 
wheat, timber, etc. — on board a ship. Adams says that if 
you can overcome this difficulty, then money and not 
goods is the best medium for purchase. In theory, yes, but, 
with exchange at the present figure, I think not. He ad- 
mits that most of the Bessarabian wheat will be unexport- 
able this year owing to the difficulty of getting it down to 
the sea. Then how can we expect the peasants to grow it 
next year.? Adams admits the cereal wealth of Roumania, 
but says that the transport difficulties block everything. 
But matters are improving elsewhere than in Bessarabia. 
There is little bribery now, he says, only two francs for a 
ten-ton wagon to the Traffic Manager, and that is a trifle. 

A good Clemenceau story, if a trifle premature, at lunch 
to-day. Clemenceau reaches heaven and is taxed by St. 
Peter with not having confessed his sins. "But, holy saint," 
replied Clemenceau, "since I reached heaven I have been 
searching high and low for a priest and cannot find a single 
one! " Another story of him after his operation for appendi- 
citis. He was asked how he felt without it. "Quite well,'* 
replied the Tiger. "There are only two perfectly useless 
things in the world. One is an appendix and the other is 
Poincarel'* ! 

Dined pleasantly with Mr. and Mrs. Guest at the Cha- 
teaubriand. Must remember to get the plan of the Sofia 
Legation for them out of the Board of Works. The site 
they think of buying here will just suit it. Guest thinks that 
a tax on profits is the best and the right means of taxing 
the oil industry here. 

Thursday, August 4, 1921. The journey home requires 
many formalities, all those countries which I have trav- 
ersed requiring that I should obtain their visas before re- 



390 BULGARIA 

turning. As there are four different coinages, and as the 
wagon-lit people have to be paid in French francs, one is 
absorbed in abstruse calculations. A little lunch party 
of the Millington Drakes at the Athene Palace Hotel 
where I met one of the partners of the Marmarosch Bank 
and should have enjoyed a longer talk with him. Two nice 
Americans from the U.S. Legation, and Colonel North, 
King's Messenger, whom I shall find on board the Orient 
Express to-morrow. Sent off some wires. M. Kissimoff 
looked in while I was dining early before the start. He had 
brought with him the Chief of Staff's reasoned statement 
why the papers were forgeries. It was in Bulgarian and 
K. translated it to me, promising to send it in French to 
London.^ 

His remarks pointed to a forgery and gave strong reasons 
for so believing. Why would not the Allies accept an in- 
quiry and submit the originals.^ he asked. I could only say 
that I had advised it. I gave him a copy of the Kemal 
postcard and he will investigate its origin and let me know. 
He will send the copy to the King from me. Kissimoff is a 
useful man to oil wheels at the F.O. He is practically the 
only civilised being there and he translates for all the for- 
eign representatives. He is honest and without passion, 
but feels things deeply, though he keeps great calm always. 
He also told me that the policy of the Bulgarian Govern- 
ment could be compressed under four headings : 

(1) The loyal execution of the Treaty of Neuilly with 
the help of the Reparations Commission and the Inter- 
Allied Military Mission. 

(2) The avoidance of everything likely to cause trouble 
in the Balkans, such as support of comitajis. 

(3) The maintenance of good and friendly relations with 
neighbours. 

(4) Compliance with the counsels of the Great Powers. 
My last conversation with Raditch came to mind, and 

also the sarcastic remark of Panourias — ils nieni ioujottrs 
— but I said nothing. Left for Paris 8.15 p.m. 

* It never came. 



ROBBED BY BANDITS 391 

Paris, Sunday, August 7, 1921. Arrived Paris 10,30 a.m. 
after three days and nights in a hot train. A disagreeable 
affair on the way. At 3 a.m. on the morning of the 5th 
a bandit crawled through the window of my sleeping-ear 
while I slept and stole my coat which was hanging up. It 
contained my money, gold cigarette-case and pencil, wrist- 
watch, pearl pin, amber cigarette-holder, etc., as well as 
my luggage tickets. The affair happened at the station of 
Homorod in Transylvania. My door was locked. I heard 
a noise as the thief escaped by the half-opened window, 
and I jumped up half-awake. I looked out, but the night 
was dark and I could see nothing. Then I discovered my 
loss and called the chef de brigade of the wagon-lits and 
made him report to the police. It was little consolation to 
hear that this was the twenty-eighth raid upon the Orient 
Express in two months. I was quite penniless, but the clief 
de brigade financed me on to Paris, and got my heavy bag- 
gage seen to.^ Colonel North and I spent the days of the 
5th and 6th August playing a good game of patience, for 
two, and so killed the time. It was very hot. The gradual 
return to civilisation through Hungary, Austria, Germany, 
and France was very striking, and each hour it became a 
shade cooler, or rather less devastatingly hot. 

Saw at the Ritz King Manuel and had a talk about his 
plans. Sir Lionel Earle whom I congratulated on the Sofia 
Legation which is a credit to the Board of Works, M. 
Vlasto who was full of Greek affairs, Rupert Higgins who 
told me the latest news of people, and a few others. 

Went off after lunch in reply to a message from the Em- 
bassy and found Lord Hardinge in his cool garden. With 
him was Mr. Arnold Robertson, my host of Coblenz, whom 
I was glad to see again. The Supreme Council meets again 
to-morrow and has a pretty heavy agenda paper. Curzon 
comes to the Embassy; Lloyd George and his forty satel- 
lites to the Crillon as usual. I told Lord H. my experiences 

* After all, I was perhaps lucky, for a few weeks later brigands held up a 
Bucharest-Budapest express, chloroformed the passengers, and cleared the 
whole train! 



392 BULGARIA 

in the East of Europe and how I differed in two respects 
from the decisions of the Council of Ambassadors about 
Bulgaria, giving him reasons with all indispensable details. 
As usual, I find that we are substantially in agreement. 
The Paris decisions of the C. of A. were taken during his 
absence on leave. H. knows Bulgaria, where he was for 
three years, practically in charge, in O'Connor's day, and 
he was also Consul-General. He thinks that the Bulgars 
are the sturdiest race in Eastern Europe. He was under 
the impression that the Compulsory Labour Law in Bul- 
garia had been knocked out, but I told him that it had not 
been, and that only two minor changes had been insisted 
upon. I also explained the question of voluntary and com- 
pulsory service and defended General de Fourtou's position. 
I think that H. will now act to put these affairs to rights. 
He is most keen on helping King Boris. 

After talking round these questions, H. told me the story 
of his recent and successful intervention here in the Anglo- 
French dispute. He had been in England on three weeks' 
leave, and on July 27 was asleep in his garden at 3 p.m., 
when his butler announced that Lord Curzon wanted him 
on the telephone. He went in and C. told him that a break 
with France was imminent and that both sides were talking 
in such a strain as to render a rupture almost inevitable. 
The French were set on sending another French division to 
Upper Silesia and were prepared to act without a Supreme 
Council if we opposed them. C. then asked H. to come up 
to London at once, to talk it all over with him, and to go 
over to Paris with a despatch for Briand. H. duly arrived 
in London at 7 p.m. and at once saw Curzon. After taking 
stock, H. said that there was no cause for alarm; that he 
felt sure that he could settle the whole dispute with Briand 
in twenty-four hours; and that he proposed to come back 
to England on the Sunday to finish some work tha,t he was 
doing. He added that all, of course, depended on the in- 
structions which he received, but if they were moderate he 
might pull through. He left next morning for Paris. The 
instructions followed him, and he spent two hoiu-s reading 



SLEDGE-HAMMER POLITICS 393 

them and converting them into French before he saw Bri- 
and. He had also thought of a formula to help Briand out, 
and thought that it was more a face-saving business than 
anything else. 

When he saw Briand, he attacked him at once. "Well, 
you are nice people to let me go away and then send bomb- 
shells to London. Of course if you want a break you can 
have one. We are not going to allow a new French division 
to go to Silesia — if you do not continue on the Supreme 
Council we shalV* — and so on. Then he read his instruc- 
tions, which were moderately worded and presented his 
formula for which, he said, he had no authority as yet from 
our Government. This formula was that a joint representa- 
tion should be made to Germany by England, France, and 
Italy asking the Boches to prepare transport for Allied 
(not French) troops. I think that there was also something 
about the Supreme Council. Anyhow, Briand accepted the 
formula and said that he preferred to put it forward as his 
own to his Cabinet. Which he did, and they accepted it 
unanimously, while our Cabinet at home accepted, too, 
and H. got home again for the conclusion of his holiday. 
A sound piece of diplomatic work. 

Now, however, he would doze in his Paris garden while 
the war of words went on, as he was not asked to the Coun- 
cil. H. does not believe in "sledge-hammer diplomacy," 
especially with Frenchmen. H. said that the agenda of the 
Council was a long one and included the Near-Eastern 
question which H. did not think was ripe yet. I told him 
that Avarescu's views accorded with his on this point. 
Also I warned him of the suspicious provenance of the secret 
papers which were being bandied about in the Balkans, 
and rather suspected that the Triple Entente meant break- 
ing up Bulgaria on the first excuse. H. said that he had 
known his T. J. for thirty years. 

Rupert Higgins was at the Ritz and we went for a stroll 
in the Champs Elysees before dinner in the Ritz garden, 
which was an agreeable change after the last month of 
enervating Hades. We happened, during our walk, to pass 



394 BULGARIA 

the Crillon where we found a small crowd waiting to wit- 
ness L. G.'s arrival. Five minutes later L. G. and Home 
drove up together. L. G. threw himself quickly out of the 
motor and entered the Crillon rapidly, looking exceedingly 
cross, and not turning his head to right or left. There was 
not a single cheer, nor did I see any hat raised. One man 
only, near the hotel door, clapped his hands. Home fol- 
lowed, beaming most amiably, and making a Fontenoy 
bow to the crowd who paid no attention. Not a very pleas- 
ant introduction to the assembly of the Council to-morrow I 

Tuesday, August 9, 1921. Returned to London. Crossing 
the Channel cogitated what prescriptions I should give for 
Europe's ailments. I would cure exchange and currency 
first by redistributing the gold now so largely, unnaturally, 
and uselessly hoarded in American banks, by withdrawing 
unhealthy units of European currency, and by substituting 
others on a gold basis. The United States would have to 
initiate this radical reform and name her terms. She is, after 
us, the greatest sufferer from the present currency chaos, 
and has the largest number of unemployed resulting from 
that chaos. I prefer this to the scheme of asking the United 
States to forgive us our debts as we forgive our foreign debt- 
ors. Also I prefer it to the Ter Meulen scheme, or barter 
on a large scale, or export credits, which, however useful, 
are actually only palliatives. We and America must put 
this reform through, otherwise European export trade of 
each is dead and our unemployment will not end. I should 
say that we could simultaneously insist upon greater free- 
dom for all international trade by the reduction to their 
lowest terms of passports, tariffs, permits, and export 
duties. 

To cure the political illnesses of Europe I would ratify 
the Anglo-American Guarantee of France against German 
aggression, or, failing American approval, would make a 
defensive and offensive alliance with France, Italy, Bel- 
gium, the four States of the Little Entente, and Greece, to 
preserve all the Peace Treaties intact. The interminable 
Franco-German friction and the Anglo-French bickerings 



OBLIGATORY ARBITRATION 395 

are all due to the unrest of France in face of the lapse of 
the promised Anglo-American Guarantee; and the uneasi- 
ness of Europe is mainly due to the unrest of France. I 
would place Sevres among the Treaties to be maintained, 
and take stern measures with any Soviet-Kemalist com- 
bination that resisted. 

I do not believe in disarmament as the best or even the 
right cure for Europe's ills. Armaments are symptoms of 
a disease and not the disease itself. I believe in obligatory 
arbitration when the Powers, and above all America, are 
great and wise enough to accept it, recognising as all should 
that an arbitral decision given against the claims of any one 
of us is nothing compared with the catastrophe of another 
world war. No State will keep up armies for anything but 
police work when obligatory arbitration becomes the set- 
tled rule in disputes, for no one will pay for armies which 
have no employment. Cure all the above evils and arma- 
ments cure themselves. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

Crossing the Atlantic — Fellow-travellers — Mr. H. G. Wells and M. Chali- 
apine — Thoughts on the Far East — A concert — New York — The 
American press — Photographers and interviewers — Japanese state- 
ments — Gold and exchanges — Washington — Sir Auckland Geddes 

— Personalities — The Metropolitan Club — Major-General Harbord — 
Mr. Frank Simonds — Secretary of State Hughes — Maurice Low — 
Philippe Millet and Pertinax — A galaxy of journalists — Mr. Elliot Good- 
win — The Chamber of Commerce of the United States — Parties — For- 
eign journalists — Mount Vernon — Arlington — General Pershing — 
General Buat — An Embassy dinner — Major-General Squier — Mr. 
Bryan — Armistice Day — Ceremony at Arlington — The opening session 
of November 12 — American proposals for limitation of naval arma- 
ments — An audacious scheme — General astonishment — The Hughes 
Memorandum — Public acquiescence — Lord Riddell and Sir Arthur 
Willert — Public discussion of the proposal — Mr. Balfour, Admiral Baron 
Kato, and Signor Schanzer — Mr. Hughes's speech — Mr. Balfour under 
press fire — China — Admiral Kato's views — Commander Brown — 
Mr. Stanley Washburn — Mrs. Marshall Field — Admiral Lord Beatty 

— Land armaments discussed — M. Briand, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. Hughes 
speak — French naval claims — An Embassy reception — A French cable 
to London — Trouble in Italy follows — Senator Root — The President 
forecasts future conferences — Mrs. West and Mr. and Mrs. Miller — 
More parties and receptions — Jonkheer Van Karnebeek — The Japanese 
block the way — A Presidential tea-party — The Big Three meeting on 
December 2 — An Italian dinner-party — First impressions of America. 

October 19, 1921. Made an early start from Waterloo to 
catch the Adriatic, which sailed from Southampton at 
noon. On the platform met H. G. Wells, who was being 
seen off by his wife, and M. Chaliapine, the great Russian 
singer, both on their way to America, the former for the 
New York World, the latter for his manager, who will dis- 
pose of him as he sees fit. Expected breakfast on the train 
and found none. Nothing on board till 1 p.m. Chaliapine 
and I both like ravening wolves in consequence. He was 
full of his Queen's Hall success this week, but empty in 
other respects. Wells great fun. He had an amorous couple 
in his compartment who spent their time embracing each 
other. Wells said it was as great a protection as a baby in 
the carriage, and no one else would come in. 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC 397 

This White Star liner is twenty-five thousand tons, and 
reputed a good sea boat. Most comfortable, not to say 
palatial. I had a good cabin, but the White Star man came 
in and promised me a better. Went to look at it and found 
it bigger than my own, with a private bathroom attached, 
and a brass double bed, not to speak of an electric stove. 
Also, it was amidships, so I transferred to it and unpacked. 
Made my number to the skipper, Captain Hambelton, a 
hale and rubicund sea oflScer, who looks competent. Found 
myself at his table with Wells; Mr. and Mrs. Butler Wright, 
from the United States Embassy in London; his mother; 
Mr. La Vie, from New York ; Dr. Mussen, a much-travelled 
Canadian; and Mr. Edward Palmer, of Boston, who all 
seem pleasant. Wright called over for the Conference. 
Talked most of the rest of the day to Wells and Chaliapine. 
The latter was detained at Petrograd during the Revolu- 
tion and has only recently been allowed out. He has dom- 
inated Russian opera for twenty years. He is a native of 
Kazan. It is his fourth visit to England, and he loves the 
country, where he has many friends besides his musical 
admirers. A great, tall, masculine, cheery person, and even 
his talking voice is musical and of a beautiful timbre. Very 
much of a personality. He told the Soviet that he could not 
sing if he was unhappy for want of food and drink, so he 
got both, and now he can make his fortune again, judging 
by the delighted applause of London. Also the White Star 
cuisine will cheer him up, as it is excellent. A calm sea to 
Cherbourg, where we put in at dark for our French pas- 
sengers and mail. A lovely sight with the lights and stars. 
What memories of old times as we anchored inside the 
famous breakwater! 

After dinner talked with Butler Wright about the Con- 
ference for over two hours. We compared notes and ideas 
about Pacific questions and the limitation of armaments. 
I am not sure yet that the Americans have grasped the full 
significance of Japan's policy since 1915, but one will judge 
this better at Washington. It seems to me that tb** Genro ^ 

^ The elder statesmen. 



398 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

have been in charge up to a recent date and that Japanese 
parhamentarism is a farce. Japan seems to me to have 
constantly infringed both the letter and the spirit of her 
alliance with England, and has been almost openly aiming 
at the protectorship of China, whereas we stipulated to- 
gether in 1902 for the independence and integrity of China 
and Korea and the open door. Cannot reconcile Japan's 
action with the spirit of our treaty, and as we have let 
Japan know since 1911 that we shall not be drawn into 
hostilities with the United States, it is not clear that our 
alliance is anything more now than a drag upon Japan. 
But the alliance stands for a year after it is denounced, and 
it is not denounced yet, so if we all fall out at Washington 
we shall be in a quandary. The United States cannot at- 
tack Japan successfully at home, nor can Japan attack 
America at home. The distance across the Pacific and the 
want of local and properly defended bases in each case, not 
to speak of submarines, seem to me to prohibit grand oper- 
ations without years of preparation. 

China will be against Japan at the Conference. It is a 
matter of vital interest to Japan to expand in Asia, and I 
heard before leaving London that she might refuse to dis- 
cuss the China question, and risk the disapproval of the 
Western Powers. But Japan will probably accept a stand- 
still on naval armaments, as she is already powerful enough 
for defence, and may not want to continue an onerous com- 
petition at sea with the United States, which has such far 
greater resources. That may enable President Harding to 
obtain a succes d'estime, but one cannot expect much change 
in land armaments owing to the position in Europe, not to 
speak of Russia and Turkey. 

I have written in the D.T., and in the coming number of 
the Atlantic Monthly in America, that obligatory arbitra- 
tion in all international disputes, and an attempt to reform 
the exchanges and unsound currencies of the world, are 
the real aims which should be pursued, but President Hard- 
ing cannot be expected to cumber his Conference with 
fresh problems at present. The real danger is the plain and 



THOUGHTS ON THE FAR EAST 399 

obvious design of Japan to rule in China, the weakness of 
the Chinese Central Government, and the collapse of Rus- 
sia. We and the United States must not push our policy to 
extremes or Japan will challenge us both. She knows all 
the cards in our hands. Can we exercise enough moral and 
economic pressure on Japan to mitigate her ambitions.'^ 
Butler Wright half believes it. I am not sure without 
deeper investigation. The whole question seems to me 
extremely dangerous, and if the Genro think that their 
time has come to throw off the mask, and are further 
alarmed by a Republican China, and by Soviet Eastern 
ambitions, they may consider that the destinies of Japan 
require serious decisions. An immense deal depends upon 
the tact of American statesmen, and much also upon the 
question whether Japan is ready to compromise. Butler 
Wright thinks that even the limitation of naval armaments 
will be a great gain. So it will be, but can it come if Japan 
prove contumacious about China.'' And will all the other 
States of the world accept a permanent inferiority at sea 
which a standstill in building will impose upon them.'* 

Butler Wright does not think that obligatory arbitration 
will be in conflict with the so-called Monroe Doctrine. He 
spoke very well to-night on all these questions, and it is 
useful to clarify one's ideas by getting well-informed men 
to dispute them. 

An ex-film fairy came on board at Cherbourg. An Amer- 
ican lumberman millionaire married her and spent huge 
sums upon her, but is now divorcing her or she him. My 
pet on board is Betty Hamilton, aged ten, a delicious little 
American girl with a sweet nature, and very winsome. 

Saturday, October 22, 1921. A good voyage up to date. 
Big rollers and a bit of wind, especially last night, but to- 
day lovely weather. We are making some four hundred 
miles a day. Sent off some wireless messages. Little news 
from the outside world and few ships met. Occupied my- 
self these three days with running through all the China 
and Japanese literature which I brought with me. The 
only hope for East Asia seems to be that England, America, 



400 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

and Japan should agree to co-operate harmoniously, but 
we shall each have to give up some vested interests in 
China if we are to do so, and we must admit Japan's spe- 
cial interests in Manchuria and Mongolia or we shall not 
get on. In what manner will our American hosts present 
the case? Which of her two faces — the Eastern or the 
Western — will Japan present to us? If the Western face, 
will she follow up promise by performance? Or shall we 
find the Black Dragon militarist society in full charge, 
and what then? How can we consolidate the power of the 
feeble Central Government of China? 

I have an uncomfortable feeling that the Black Dragon 
clansmen may think that their time has come to throw for 
the overlordship of Asia, and that the Genro may stand 
behind them and issue such instructions to the Japanese 
delegates that they may be unable to compromise. The 
whole policy of Japan in China since 1915 has been one of 
aggression and acquisitiveness, as well as unfriendly to 
England. The more I study her secret twenty-one de- 
mands of January, 1915, on China, and all her press cam- 
paign of 1916 against England, and her subsequent secret 
loans and alliances forced on China, the less I believe in 
the virtue of an alliance which Japan has broken in the 
letter and the spirit time after time. The policy of our 
Government in the face of this unblushing hostility is not 
yet apparent to me. There can be little doubt that Japan 
in 1915 and 1916 thought that we were going to be beaten. 
She did as little as possible to help us, and practically 
turned against us in our worst days, whereas in 1904-05 we 
were solid for Japan in her days of greatest danger. There 
is apparently a considerable civilian body of opinion in 
Japan which believes that the power of their militarists is 
diminishing, but I can place no trust in it while the Genro 
and the clans are in power and probably with a settled 
policy which will not be to our liking. 

It seems to me that Japan was surprised at Russia go- 
ing Bolshevist, and by China turning Republican. Japan's 
ruling circles are alarmed lest the infection may spread to 



THOUGHTS ON THE FAR EAST 401 

their Left parties. They would Hke to secure Siberia up to 
Lake Baikal, first, for strategical reasons when Russia 
shall have recovered, and secondly, to provide her facto- 
ries with the raw materials which they need. They are 
practically in possession of Russian Eastern Asia, and 
China is in their power if they stretch out their hand. Are 
they likely to abandon their predominance in Eastern 
Asia at the bidding of Powers which may be unable to 
coerce them? Will they be content with Manchuria and 
Mongolia, and shall we definitely admit their acquisition 
of these regions? Also, even if we have got to know some 
of their secret intrigues with China, how many more are 
there which we do not know? A prima facie case has been 
made out for denouncing our alliance with Japan, but she 
must be given a chance of explaining her position and of 
coming into line with us and America. 

Tuesday, October 25, 1921. There are many pleasant 
people on board this liner, and some interesting figures. 
Mr. Elliot Goodwin, the Vice-Chairman of the American 
Chamber of Commerce, and his wife, are the most rep- 
resentative of the Americans on board. I like them both 
very much and shall find him later on at Washington. In 
character and qualities, as well as in judgement and 
measure, he represents what one values most in leading 
men. We have had some good talks and also play my 
favourite game of patience together, a game which he 
calls Russian Bank. Major Henry Whitehouse, another 
American, well known in England, is also an agreeable 
companion. Mr. E. J. Metcalfe is the brother of my old 
comrade of that name. Mr. F. A. Nash is a wide-awake 
and capable American commercial man, keen, young, and 
observant. The ex-film fairy has attracted some admirers. 
It seems that she is allowed three thousand pounds a 
month for dress, and wears ornaments amounting to the 
value of some score of thousands. She is rather pretty, 
undistinguished, and overdressed. Wells is always a great 
interest, full of jokes and quaint ideas, but most retiring 
and keeps in the background. He has been to the United 



402 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

States only once before, and he hates life on board ship as 
cordially as I do. We become indolent, overfed, incapable 
of solid reading or good writing. I asked him if any good 
book had ever been written at sea. He knew of none ex- 
cept one novel by Conrad. The hypnotism of the sea, the 
throbbing of the engines, the eight hundred passengers on 
board and crew of five hundred and fifty, and the want of 
exercise, real peace, and good books are all a fatal bar to 
literature. It is a form of imprisonment, even if every- 
thing possible is done to make one's voyage agreeable; as it 
is on this beautiful, friendly, and admirably conducted ship. 

We have on board Dr. Richard Strauss, the composer 
of "Salome" and the "Rosencavalier," a Bavarian by 
birth, director of the Vienna Opera House; Mme. Schu- 
mann-Heink, the singer; Mile. Lucrezia Bori, another fine 
singer, who changed her name from Borgia so unneces- 
sarily; Miss Kathleen Parlow, the violinist of great 
talent; and of course that strange, emotional, artistic 
Chaliapine, who receives wireless messages daily from 
his admirers in London. In Dr. Schuloff we have a com- 
petent caricaturist, while Chaliapine and Wells are com- 
petitors in this branch. Caruso had the same gift of 
dashing off impromptu sketches. 

The weather has remained fairly good, with occasional 
relapses into pitching and rolling, but the ship is very 
steady and the temperature not too low. We hear news 
daily by wireless, and before dinner a little paper comes 
out with the gist of it all. Yesterday we heard that 
Wirth's Government in Germany had resigned over the 
Upper Silesia award, to my great regret, and that that 
deluded idiot Karl had reached Hungary by aeroplane, 
regardless of the dangers which he is bringing on the 
Magyars and of his promise to the Swiss Government. 
The fate of the Irish Conference still hangs in the bal- 
ance. Poor Dmitri, the Bulgarian War Minister, has been 
murdered with several others. The Macedonians have 
got him. He told me ^ that they had condemned him to 
death when I met him at Sofia. 

' See chapter on Bulgaria. 



A CONCERT 403 

To-night we had a great concert on board. A little 
committee got it up and made me act as chairman for the 
evening. Chaliapine made excuses for not singing; so did 
Mile. Bori; but Dr. Strauss was splendid in taking over 
the work of accompanying, and Miss Parlow with the violin 
and Mme. Schumann-Heink in singing were quite excel- 
lent. The dining-saloon was very full; practically every- 
one came. Our ship's band opened, and then we had Miss 
Parlow and Mme. Schumann-Heink, who were both im- 
mensely applauded. Chaliapine had come to look on, and 
when Mme. Schumann-Heink had finished, I went over to 
him and made a last appeal to him to sing. To our joy he 
accepted. Strauss accompanied him, and he gave us Bee- 
thoven, "Alia Tomba Oscura," or some such title, followed 
by a love song. He is indeed a marvel, complete, tremen- 
dous, and the finest dramatist imaginable. He seems one 
mass of sensibility and emotion and his bass voice is gor- 
geous, of great volume, range, and feeling. He was raptur- 
ously applauded. 

Then I had to make a little speech to explain that the 
concert was for the benefit of the seamen's orphanages in 
England and America, but of course I began by asking for 
a vote of thanks to the great artists. Then four pretty 
girls made a collection which produced eighty pounds, 
and finally Miss Carruthers, an American lady journalist 
— her real name is Mrs. Margaret C. Deyo — sold our 
pictures and caricatures made by Chaliapine, Wells, Dr. 
Schuloff, and Dr. Frick. There were also signed photos of 
various celebrities. This went well, and produced a hun- 
dred and fifteen pounds, so we had nearly two hundred 
pounds to send to the fund, which was a good result, and 
I doubt whether a ship's concert has ever produced more 
talent. 

Wednesday, October 26, 1921. Wet, cold, rough, and 
squally. The lounge, which is heated by hot air, is the 
warmest place on the ship. 

Thursday, October 27, 1921. A fine sunny morning and 
a calm sea. I was surprised to hear from a passenger who 



404 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

constantly crosses the ocean that he had never known a 
rougher voyage. If he had said the exact contrary, I should 
have been less astonished. We made a good run to-day 
and were able to make New York docks by evening. The 
somewhat archaic methods of picking up our pilot and 
of undergoing medical inspection provoked much sarcasm 
among the passengers, especially the Americans. The view 
of the harbor is fine. There was much smoke over the city 
and some huge sky-scrapers, including one of forty-six 
stories, appeared like fairy castles at an immense height 
above the pall of mist. Here, in August, 1664, there sailed 
in my forbear. Admiral Sir Robert Holmes,^ and captured 
the city, then called New Amsterdam, from the Dutch. 
It is a pity that he did not peg out a few claims while he 
was about it. He let in the English colonists who renamed 
it New York. The capture of New York is a feat unlikely 
to be repeated, I imagine. But I am not forgetting 1664. 
A dozen destroyers passed us heading out to sea. At the 
Quarantine Station Mr. Percy Bullen, the D. T. corre- 
sp>ondent at New York, very kindly came aboard and we 
had a good talk. Then had to go up to the sun deck to be 
victimised with Wells and Chaliapine by seven or eight 
photographers, and subsequently the same number of 
reporters came to examine me. Mr. Bullen dined on board 
with me at six. I asked my steward if he could get Bullen 
a whiskey and soda. "No, Sir, no whiskey. Sir; we have 
just passed the Statue of Liberty," replied the steward 
quite severely! Tied up at seven-thirty. The system of 
parking our baggage under the first letters of our names was 
good, but the examination by the customs people was un- 
civilised. Have rooms at the Vanderbilt Hotel. Mr. Fer- 
ris Greenslet came in later and we had a good talk. A bad 
night. The noise of trams continued uninterruptedly all 
the time and the room was stifling from the radiator. 
It does not do to be on the lower floors in this town — I 
beg its pardon — this city. 

* It is from the Admiral that the elder branch of the k Courts take their 
name of Holmes a Court. 



NEW YORK 405 

Friday, October 28, 1921. A fine morning. Read all the 
papers. The railway strike here is off, thank goodness. 
Comments on the Conference various. Opinion has not 
settled down yet. There is no material as yet to guide peo- 
ple. The Atlantic Monthly has made a feature of the Con- 
ference this month and has articles by me, Pitkin, Bland, 
Powell, Sidebotham, and Bywater. A good number, and 
I must congratulate Ellery Sedgwick, the editor. But he 
makes me write *' honor," "guaranty," "labor," "defense," 
and "traveler." I prefer our spelling.^ 

Went off " down-town " as they call it — i.e., to the busi- 
ness quarter of Broadway — and called at Bullen's office, 
where his assistant and his son were at work. We went to the 
Equitable Assurance Society Building, from which there 
is a fine view of the town. We were fired rather than car- 
ried to the top by the elevator. Not exactly impressive, but 
weird, fantastic, and extraordinary. The greatest sky- 
scrapers have grown up within the last twenty years. They 
are necessary owing to the restricted space on this tongue 
of Manhattan Island and are possible because they are 
founded and rest on volcanic rock. But no one knows quite 
how they will be affected by corrosion of steel or pressure 
on mortar, so no higher buildings may now be made. 

Large crowds in the streets at the luncheon hour. We 
lunched at the Bankers' Club, a very agreeable institu- 
tion. Then to see the crowd in Broadway to receive Mar- 
shal Foch, who arrived to-day, and was given a great re- 
ception which equalled that when he came to London in 
1918. Streets and windows full. The public have a way of 
displaying their regard by resounding noise, and by drop- 
ping showers of little bits of paper from the windows of the 
huge buildings. It is like snow, and on Armistice Day was 
two feet deep in the narrow streets, they say. At three was 
again interviewed, and at four went to the New York Times 
ofiSce and had a good talk with the Assistant Editor, 

* Mr. Sedgwick told me later that Webster had superseded Worcester as the 
authority for spelling, but admitted that his magazine had a list of about twenty 
words which were not in accord with Webster. 



406 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

Mr. Van Anda. Very amusing to hear the veridic history of 
the Steed-Northdiffe despatch which has set all the press 
of Fleet Street and New York laughing. Van Anda thinks 
that little will come out of the Conference. Went for a 
walk to see the transparencies and advertisements by lights 
in the streets and studied the Fifth Avenue shops. The 
sky-scrapers oppress me. Dined with Ferris Greenslet at 
the Century Club, Seven West Forty-Third Street. The 
Athenaeum of New York, well and tastefully furnished in 
the best English club style; very restful and pleasant. Met 
some nice people there after dinner and had a good talk 
about personalities and events. I find that the big papers 
here have a circulation of about 350,000 and the best mag- 
azines 120,000 or thereabouts. The New York Times is 
generally conceded to be the best paper, and the World 
and Herald next. The Kansas City Star has a good repute. 
So has the Chicago Tribune. Expect that generalising 
about America will be dangerous owing to the size of the 
country and the different interests of the States. Public 
sentiment is not expressed or perhaps we should say cre- 
ated, by the big papers at any one city, as it usually is 
by London and Paris. 

New York has the effect upon me of meeting an ichthy- 
osaurus in Berkeley Square. I have transferred my rooms 
from the second to the fifteenth story to try to escape the 
noise. A wonderful view over the city, twinkling with in- 
numerable lights. But it is all amazing and gargantuan and 
I cannot imagine anyone wanting to live here. It is one 
perpetual roar and rush of people and vehicles; surging 
masses of humanity and trams, cars, taxis, and carts 
without end. A hateful place. Nothing great in the realm 
of ideas can ever come from such a restless spot. 

A story of Admiral Sims. He was asked what the Su- 
preme Council would do about the freedom of the seas. 
Sims replied that he did not care so long as they did not 
interfere with mixed bathing. 

Saturday y October 29, 1921. A course of reading New 
York morning papers would exhaust the entire day if one 



THE AMERICAN PRESS 407 

did not learn how to skip. Each paper is of huge size and 
all employ horribly small type, trying to the eyes. But one 
soon sees that the mass of the material is worthless to a 
foreigner, as it consists of local gossip and sensations. It 
is enough to read the headings, which are conspicuous, 
and then to select the subjects of real interest and a few 
leaders. Then one can polish oflP the papers in an hour or 
so. They throw little light on the Conference as yet. There 
seems to be no mass interest in it, but I suppose it will 
come when the fiye hundred correspondents expected at 
Washington settle down. The foreign telegrams here are 
fairly good and keep us posted in outside news. There seems 
to me no definite attitude taken up by American opinion 
about the Conference. There is a mild interest in limit- 
ing armaments, and a vague suspicion that Pacific ques- 
tions may prove difl5cult to settle, but no national policy 
nor partiality for nor dislike of any foreign nation. It may 
come, but the initial sentiment is rather Laodicean. I am 
told that one of Harding's private memos began, "Amer- 
ica does not want a darned thing," and that about repre- 
sents the preliminary popular indifference. But Harding 
and the United States delegates have had many meet- 
ings, and are said to have a definite plan of action and line 
of policy. Hughes, Root, Lodge, and Underwood are a 
strong team, and the work will be left to Hughes in the 
main, it seems. Harding is increasing in popular favour. 
Hughes said to be broader and more internationally minded 
than he was. Public opinion in the street resents our 
alliance with Japan. It will not be with us till it ends and 
the Irish Conference proves successful. These are our two 
stumbling-blocks, but I fancy that there is a fairly large 
section of this people which is incurably hostile to us. 

Had a talk at the National City Bank of New York about 
finance and exchanges. They gave me their last excellent 
monthly summary on economic conditions, governmental 
finance, etc., and I am studying it. I wanted to see Del- 
monico's, so lunched there with Bullen. In London we 
should call it a fair second-class restaurant. Neither the 



408 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

company nor the waiting nor the food was above the or- 
dinary, but the prices were about double ours. I suppose 
that Prohibition may have hit all the fashionable re- 
sorts by depriving them of their best source of profits. 
Went on to the Metropolitan Art Museum to see the pic- 
tures. A very fine but most heterogeneous collection. Rich 
in Rembrandts particularly, and some of the finest quality. 
Rubens's Holy Family about the best example of that mas- 
ter that I have ever seen. Treasures of all schools, and some 
notable modern works like Meissonier's 1807 and Rosa 
Bonheur's Horse Fair. The Library seems to me better 
organised than ours at the British Museum. An immense 
reading public here, it seems. The huge reading-rooms 
were very full. It is a pity, by the way, that no old 
master ever tried to paint a Holy Family in Palestine. 
Rubens's Virgin is a pretty Dutch woman with a complex- 
ion obtrusively Dutch. However, the Americans are to be 
congratulated upon their public and private art collec- 
tions of all kinds. As trade follows the flag, so art treasures 
follow the money. That is one merit of public galleries, 
for the gems remain. Found a good bookseller's shop in 
Fifth Avenue, Brentano's, rich in all sorts of literature, 
and exceedingly well arranged. Bought a few books on sub- 
jects relating to the Conference agenda. 

Two "nigger" stories: Two blacks were disputing 
whether the sun or the moon was of most value to the earth. 
Finally they agreed that the moon was, because it shone 
when it was dark. Story II: A black up for trial for steal- 
ing a chicken. Judge, " Have you a lawyer to defend you, 
prisoner?" Blacky "No, Judge, I wanter keep dis chicken." 

Sunday, October 30, 1921. Ordered all the Sunday pa- 
pers published here. It took two strong men to carry them 
in. The New York Times alone was about the size of ten 
copies of the D. T. The others on the same scale. They 
were all encyclopaedic, a sort of series of supplements on 
news, politics, gossip, sensations, sport, art, theatres, and 
so on, each paper representing a heavy day's reading. Met 
a New York publisher ta-day who disputes my notion that 



JAPANESE STATEMENTS 409 

the American public are great readers and great book-lov- 
ers. The crowd which I saw at the Library, he says, meant 
nothing because of New York's seven milhon people. He 
says that the public have the "spirit of acquisitiveness 
about books, but are not really book-lovers." He says that 
they prefer the papers, the cheap magazines, and the bad 
novels. So my first pleasant illusion vanishes. Or ought to 
do so, but I am not quite convinced. There are surely the 
gallant few who bear the torch in the gloom. 

There were some things of interest in to-day's papers 
about Japan. First a New York Times cable from London 
quotes Baron Hayashi^ as saying that the question of 
China would be brought before the Conference. But an 
Associated Press cable from Victoria, B.C., quotes Prince 
Tokugawa's personal hope that "the questions between 
China and Japan will be kept out of the Conference be- 
cause it is better to solve these questions directly between 
the countries concerned." Admiral Kato, in the same cable, 
is made to say that a naval understanding is the great is- 
sue before the Conference. He also says that "Japan's 
basic principle is her desire to maintain a navy suflBciently 
strong to engage any naval force that any naval power 
might be able to send to her waters of the Far East." So, 
Kato goes on, "if American Eastern bases were so enlarged 
as to manipulate the whole navy, Japan would want to 
strengthen her own fleet in proportion." Again, the Chicago 
Tribune has asked a string of questions of Premier Hara 
of Japan at Tokio, and the answers were submitted to the 
Cabinet. Japan desires, according to this statement, that 
"an equitable reduction should be based upon a sole con- 
sideration of national security, having due regard not 
merely to the area or population, but the length of the lit- 
toral lines and geographical and topographical conditions." 
Asked about a standstill in naval armament, Hara re- 
plied that the paramount duty of the navy was defence 
against foreign aggression, and that Japan was only pre- 
pared to accept a reduction if and so long as the exigen- 

* Japanese Ambassador in London, 



410 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

cies of the national defence were thereby duly satisfied. 
The New York Times in another communication from 
Washington quotes a declaration of September 20 by the 
State Department which shows the line to be taken about 
Siberia. It says that "in the absence of a single, recog- 
nised Russian Government, the protection of legitimate 
Russian interests must devolve as a moral trusteeship upon 
the whole Conference." A pleasing task to become trustee 
for a lunatic! 

These things are all very illuminating, especially Kato's 
warning that if the United States fortify her bases Japan 
will increase her fleet. Rifts in the lute of the concert 
discernible already at a distance. The United States is 
warned off the fortification of her own possessions ! 

In general I gather from the United States press and 
private conversations here that the American public re- 
gard the Conference with some indifference, want nothing, 
and are sceptical of success. But they do not wish the Con- 
ference to be a patent failure, and Senator Borah is already 
threatening fire and brimstone to all and sundry if no limi- 
tation of armaments ensues. Japan will apparently oppose 
a discussion on China if such discussion infringes any ac- 
quired rights of Japan, but it seems now that the China 
question must come up and that United States diplomacy 
has shown Japan that no trap is laid for her. There are one 
hundred Chinese already at Washington for the Conference 
and they had a good reception. 

In the afternoon went for a motor drive up the Hudson, 
came back to tea at Claremont, and then dined later at a 
certain restaurant. Also inspected the Central Park in the 
afternoon. A heavy iog hid the distant view along the 
river. Some warships displayed their misty shapes. There 
were thousands of cars out. They went by in flocks and 
herds wherever one went. Saw Columbia University which 
boasts twenty thousand students, and I hope proportionate 
luminosity. The Central Park is well laid out, but the 
trees are most scrubby specimens and refuse to grow. Was 
given a cocktail at dinner, in a teacup. It was of gin and 



GOLD AND EXCHANGES 411 

bitters and oranges. I hate gin, but there it was. Every- 
body drinks here. One wants to drink mainly because it is 
forbidden. My hotel valet says that all his colleagues can 
get all drinks at three or four places close to their lodgings. 
The workmen all drink too, generally vile stuff. A bottle 
of whiskey costs twelve dollars. A cobweb of bribery cov- 
ers everything. They say that it would take ten years to 
clear off the cases down for trial. Drink is a curse, but 
Prohibition does not seem to be a successful cure in a free 
community. 

Monday, October SI, 1921. More photographing visitors. 
This time they elected the roof of my hotel for my martyr- 
dom. Went off to lunch down-town with Mr. Otto Kahn, 
the well-known banker, at a select little club where we had 
a good gossip in a private room. I found that he entirely 
shares my view that the restoration of sound currencies in 
Europe, and the acceptance of obligatory arbitration, are 
the real cures of the world's ills. I approached rather gin- 
gerly the question of utilising America's hoarded gold as a 
basis for new currencies. He was all for it, and thought 
that a third of the gold in the United States banks could 
easily be used in this way. The amount of gold cover could 
be under twenty-five per cent of the note issue. It would 
almost be enough to give out that the scheme was afoot to 
cause the currencies to bound up. Would not some States 
like Germany perhaps oppose? He feared they might, but 
should be compelled to toe the line by methods of con- 
straint. It was the only way out, he agreed. He has spoken 
to Harding on the subject, and only last night to Mr. Mc- 
Kenna, who was dining with him. He praised Harding and 
said that he was not the mere figurehead that people had 
at first esteemed him to be. He was sound and patriotic 
and had greatly grown in the estimation of leading men. 
We both praised McKenna. The worst thing in the situa- 
tion, my banker friend said, was that though foreign trade 
was vital for England it was less so for the United States. 
Therefore an administration might hesitate to touch such 
a thorny subject, as it might be bitterly attacked. Should 



412 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

we try the scheme on one State at a time or deal with all at 
once? Otto Kahn thought that it would be best to do the 
whole thing right off and he thought it would be easy. He 
would like a small committee of three good men from Eng- 
land and the United States each, and as few of other nations 
as possible. But they must have some sort of assurance 
that their Governments would back them, as the thing 
could not be done without Government support, and be- 
sides, real good men would not lay themselves out to con- 
struct an academic scheme, as their time was too valuable. 
All this is on the lines of my Atlantic Monthly article. 

He advised me to see certain members of the Senate 
whom he named. They were very representative and of 
high intelligence and character. They suffered like the 
rest of the people here by being provincial and uninformed, 
and many were untravelled. He thought the Japanese 
raw. They might make mistakes because they lacked ex- 
perience and foresight in diplomacy. He lauded the Eng- 
lish and the manner in which they had conducted their 
affairs in past days. They must still continue the Atlas 
business for a time because the United States was not yet 
ready to replace them, but the Conference was a beginning. 
In view of the last Presidential election cries, Harding has 
to ride with a very light hand, but obviously the well- 
being of the world was an American interest and all must 
understand it at last. 

Caught the 3.25 p.m. Congressional Express to Washing- 
ton. A fast train, but more shaky than ours and the car- 
riages not up to our Pullman cars in finish, comfort, or 
convenience. The country flat, desolate, unfinished, and 
without merits. But I was so glad to be quit of New York 
that nothing mattered. What a town ! The highest, lowest, 
cruellest, cunningest, noisiest, of all great cities. But the 
great stations are fine and the railway system cuts out 
ours. We are best on the sea roads and the Americans on 
the land ways. Reached Washington 8.35 p.m. Pouring, 
and very warm. At the Washington Hotel I have pleasant 
but fearfully expensive rooms. They charge me twenty- 



WASHINGTON 413 

five dollars a day for two rooms on the eighth floor! All 
the windows have mosquito net tin coverings and one can- 
not look out or allow the air to circulate freely. Ran into 
Major-General Squier, formerly Military Attache in Lon- 
don, and we had a good talk about old times and the Con- 
ference. He told me an extraordinary tale, namely, that 
when Harding speaks on Armistice Day his voice will be 
heard for half a mile round, louder than in the building 
itself, and that at enormous cost it will be heard at Chicago 
and in San Francisco. It is a new invention, a sort of sub- 
limated megaphone, and there is a huge and complicated 
mechanism of telephonic apparatus and amplifiers where 
Harding will stand, but there will actually be visible only 
a small reading-desk on which will be a box nine inches 
square. Every few hundred miles the message is treated to 
a process of magnification. One Colonel Carty, a genius, 
has worked it all out, and has a staff under him trained to 
the hour. Nothing but the cost prevents the speech from 
being heard, louder than in the hall itself, in every city in 
the United States! I was rather appalled, and said that 
oratory, with such an instrument at its hand, would be- 
come an awful power. The secret was being well kept. 
Nothing had yet appeared in the press. Squier knows all 
about it, as he is at the head of the Signal Service, which is 
helping Carty. 

Washington, Tuesday, November 1, 1921. Rain and thun- 
der. Warm. We are evidently going to live in a diplomatic 
glass house here and there will be little secrecy. All the 
American system is against secrecy. Harding and Hughes 
constantly see all the press representatives and things are 
all done coram publico. It is as if any press man at home 
could see the King and Curzon every week and ask any 
question! It is evident, for example, from press notices 
to-day that our hosts are finding as great difficulty in dis- 
covering a formula for the reduction of naval armaments 
as we found at The Hague in 1899. The Americans are out 
for a navy equal to ours at least. Their navy estimates are 
$400,000,000 and the number of men to be voted 120,000. 



414 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

These estimates should come before Congress in December, 
but Harding has not yet reviewed them, and before De- 
cember much may happen. 

The American delegation cannot discover a satisfactory 
method of limiting naval strengths by agreement, irrespec- 
tive of the extent of the limitation. That was exactly our 
quandary twenty-two years ago. Considerations of na- 
tional defence come first with America as with Japan. 
The Americans think that a fifty per cent reduction during 
the next twenty years, taking the expenditure of the last 
five years as a basis, would be a grave menace to their 
safety, but it is suggested that much depends on the con- 
tinuance or ending of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, for while 
it lasts America has to regard the implied possibilities of 
the alHance. They have evidently not studied the 1911 
treaty and the 1914 papers very closely or they would not 
put forward this plea. 

The Americans also suggest that, even as between Amer- 
ica and England, a fifty per cent reduction would be in our 
favour, since our naval bases and merchant navy are su- 
perior, and besides the higher price of American labour 
would tell in favour of England and still more of Japan. 
So they wail that every plan has its drawbacks, and yet 
here is the limitation of naval armaments standing as the 
first item of the American agenda and it is up to America to 
suggest something. There are also joint American Army 
and Navy plans for the defence of bases in the Pacific, and 
we have seen what Admiral Kato has said ^ about this. 

Went round to our Embassy and after a talk with the 
Councillor, Mr. Chilton, First Secretary, Mr. Craigie, and 
Mr. Peterson, saw the Ambassador, Sir Auckland Geddes. 
He was looking well and was very much satisfied with the 
change which had come over American opinion regarding 
us during the last few months. We were regarded like mud 
when he came and only recently things have mended. He 
has stumped the country hke an election agent and hopes 
that he has done some good. I am sure that he has, from 

\ See entry for October 29. 



PERSONALITIES ' 415 

opinions expressed to me. He can now go anywhere with- 
out the old poHce escort. He is not told much about our 
policy, but is occasionally asked what our policy should be. 
The idea that the stay-at-home Americans may come some 
day to understand the real England fills one with a new 
hope. 

Had a talk later with X, who does not think that Hard- 
ing's and Hughes's policies are quite alike, for Harding sees 
neither black nor white in a case, but only greys, and is a 
man of compromise who feels his way. He is without van- 
ity. Hughes is a Baptist and his father and grandfather 
were Baptist ministers. He is of Welsh-Nordic extraction, 
less known than any other statesman, resembling Wilson 
in certain points, and always liable to mount to the skies 
with his principles and to bring us in touch with the Deity. 
Hughes stands for the open door, for the integrity of China, 
and for the trusteeship of Russia in Siberia. But, says X, 
what is China and what is the open door? Does China 
include Manchuria, Mongolia, and Thibet, or not.? He 
thinks that Manchuria is definitely controlled by the Japa- 
nese and must be so accounted. If Hughes finds it neces- 
sary to state a case against Japan, it will be damning, but 
if Japan is placed in the dock she will quit the Conference. 
Hughes is a good lawyer and will get up a case well. But, 
being a lawyer, he cannot think. You are either innocent 
or guilty. There are no greys; only the black or the white. 
X thinks that we shall all have our diflSculties and must go 
warily especially at first, and study the whole situation 
before we commit ourselves. He thinks that the Japanese 
are less intransigent than they were, or were supposed to 
be, when I left London. They may be afraid of being left 
isolated and thrown back upon Asia without a friend. 
We discussed the naval question and he gave me Beatty's 
views. He hoped that a good sound Anglo-American un- 
derstanding might result from the Conference, and perhaps 
an exchange of notes which would not have to be sub- 
mitted to the Senate. 

Lunched with Major-General George 0. Squier and 



416 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

Brigadier-General Lassiter, Squier's successor in London, 
and now Director of Operations here. We had a good talk 
on the state of Europe and the remedies for it. The Metro- 
politan is a very pleasant club with fine rooms, a good 
library, and good food. Most of the important people here 
belong to it. Lansing, to whom I was introduced; Hoover; 
Weeks, the head of the War Department; ex-Ambassador 
Wallace; and various others were there, including Mr. 
Elliot Goodwin. Squier interested me by saying how hard 
it was to become, and even still more to remain, a national 
character in the United States. It was so different in 
England, where all the public men were known and went 
on being known and their qualities being understood. 
Here few people could name six governors of States out 
of forty-eight, yet many States were larger than the 
minor European monarchies. Governors and ministers 
were unknown nationally, and after leaving office they 
disappeared from sight. Some Americans tried to name 
four national figures the other day, and of those selected 
one was the champion baseball player and the other 
Charlie Chaplin ! The country was so big, and only figures 
like Roosevelt or Wilson stood out. The governors might 
be great men in their States, and their States very pro- 
gressive and efficient, but the renown was local. The 
cabinets when formed were composed of quite unknown 
men, and one could go on naming other cabinets of the 
same type ad infinitum. 

Washington is a pleasant, quiet, well-laid-out city. It 
is a capital and nothing more. There are scarcely any 
factories and few banks. The governing people are con- 
stantly meeting each other and the circle is relatively 
small. There is nothing of the noise and racket of New 
York. People can work and think. The distances are 
slight. I called at the White House to leave a card. 
"Walk right in," said the darky at the door. A most 
pleasant, dignified house of a good date, about 1800. Very 
public, as the grounds are small and there were no guards 
or sentries visible. There is just one minor sky-scraper in 



MAJOR-GENERAL HARBORD 417 

a corner of Lafayette Square which the White House 
faces. It offends the eye, but most of the other houses are 
homey and of quite medium size. Not a few from 1800 to 
1830 by appearance. The Government oflBces seem well 
arranged and the architecture is good. I expect that it is 
a town that grows on one. 

Called to see Mr. Oulahan, the correspondent of the 
New York Times at Washington. A competent man. He 
eulogised the American delegation team, which is indeed 
a strong one. He told me, to my regret, that England was 
not in good odour in America generally because her action 
at Versailles was considered selfish. The man in the street 
regarded us, in relation to Japan, as we should have re- 
garded any ally of Germany in 1914. The people did not 
look into things closely and only regarded simple things 
such as the fact that we were the allies of Japan. Mean- 
while Foch is making a triumphal progress through Amer- 
ica and is being acclaimed by vast crowds. Looked in at 
the War and State Departments and made some appoint- 
ments. I have been made a member of the Metropolitan, 
which seems to be one of the best clubs here. The Cosmos 
Club also hospitably opens its door to us all. Boodles and 
Athenaeum please note. 

Wednesday, November 2, 1921. Called early to have a talk 
with Major-General Harbord, sub-Chief of Staff, whom 
I was glad to see again. He was commanding a division 
on the border and had the reversion of a corps area, but 
when Pershing asked him to come he had to accept. From 
what he tells me, the limitation of land armaments will 
not figure at all prominently at the Conference, and this 
is confirmed by my reading of all the preliminary corre- 
spondence about the Conference between the State Depart- 
ment and foreign Powers. Harbord has, however, little 
notion of what his delegation will do. He meets their 
indents for information, but otherwise is not consulted 
and says that he probably knows less than I do. He is not 
at all sure that a standstill in naval armaments will suit 
the United States, yet such idea stands in the forefront of 



418 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

the American invitation and it is difficult to escape the 
consequences now. Harbord has a useful coloured chart 
of the Pacific hanging up with all the mandated and other 
territories in the Pacific marked in colour according to the 
nations now owning them. Guam is isolated in the midst 
of the Jap Caroline and other islands and one must regard 
the Philippines as an aim of Japanese ambition when one 
studies the chart. Harbord wonders whether his Govern- 
ment has seriously considered all the problems which it 
has stated and has any solutions for them. We discussed 
whether any form of economic pressure could bring Japan 
to her senses if she broke with us all here and reverted to 
a Pan- Asian policy. It is uncertain. Japan wants the re- 
sources and raw materials of China for her growing in- 
dustries, but also the markets of the world for the sale of 
her finished products. It is no use to make goods if you 
cannot sell them. 

Lunched at the Metropolitan with Frank Simonds, who 
is about the best writer in American journalism on world 
affairs. He now syndicates himself and has a varying 
number of papers — forty to eighty according to the in- 
terest taken in events — which he supplies. So he is not 
worried by "the policy of the paper" when he writes, but 
finds some disadvantage in not having the support of a 
special paper, as he would have if he wrote for only one. 
We had a long talk over the business of the Conference and 
exchanged ideas thereon. Like X, he thinks that everything 
centres round Hughes, and was most illuminating on the 
past and present character of the Secretary of State. He 
thinks that Harding is capable, but willingly leaves all the 
foreign work to Hughes, who runs everything. But if 
trouble comes. Root may restore matters, as he is a skilful 
negotiator and can bend while Hughes can only break, as 
compromise is antagonistic to him. Simonds thinks that 
the Japs have softened in the last few weeks and may not 
willingly face the consequences of a break with the West. 
I said that they were certainly creating an atmosphere to 
lead us to think so, but that the vital interests of Japan 



MR. FRANK SIMONDS 419 

were unchanging and that it was not a question of what the 
Japs said, but of what they did. Simonds dilated on the 
hostiHty aroused here by the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, and 
imagines that Hughes will be as well prepared for a slap at 
England as at Japan. He agreed that Hughes reproduced 
with singular fidelity many of the characteristics of Wilson, 
and thought it arose from similar Puritanical upbringing. 
He would enter upon a war without hesitation if his con- 
science impelled him to do so. Fiat Justitia . . . I 

Simonds wants China to be defined as the territory 
within the Great Wall. He thinks that another great war 
would pull down the whole edifice of civilisation. I agreed, 
but said that we could not afford to adopt too conciliatory 
an attitude in the face of excessive demands. Simonds 
thinks that war with Japan will come within five years. 
The Japs are going about saying that we shall not find 
them the people of the twenty-one demands of 1915, and 
they even profess to admit and regret their errors in 1915 
and 1916. But I have not yet heard that they propose to 
abandon anything. For all the calm on the surface of 
things, and notwithstanding the amiable professions of 
everybody, there are many dangers in the diplomatic nav- 
igation. A fact to remember is that a failure will ruin the 
political prestige of the Republicans here. 

Looked in at the Press Bureau to pick up some papers 
and found Mr. Hughes addressing the correspondents, 
who hung upon his words. An amusing affair. An example 
of how to talk diplomatically with apparent frankness and 
to tell an audience absolutely nothing. They all wrote 
frantically, but might as well have spared their paper. 
Hughes a tall, thickish man, vigorous and vital, but strikes 
one as a trifle fanatical in his outlook, and has the fierce 
twinkle in his eye of a bull before he charges. I put him 
down as dangerous. They say he has no weaknesses. 
What a tragedy, if true: However, he is assuredly a male 
man and that is much, and there is no duplicity about the 
man at all. It is not in him. 

Met Philippe Millet and asked him to dinner after he 



420 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

had made a joking and slightly malicious remark about the 
pleasure it gave him to find the Anglo-Saxon cousins at 
loggerheads. I did not know that they were, and said so. 
It is a strange revelation to me that he should arrive with 
such an odd Paris-made idea. He came in the evening and 
we had a good talk. Every discussion discloses new fea- 
tures of the Far Eastern question. Here is Millet saying 
that no one knows the number of secret agreements made 
between the Chinese and the Western Powers or their na- 
tionals, exclusive of Japan ! Not even China knows them 
all, because many were made with local Chinese author- 
ities who made too much money to blab about them. He 
finds the subordinate oflScials at the State Department 
very mysterious and also anti-Japanese. He says that his 
Ambassador, M. Jusserand, has a good moral influence 
and is more esteemed than any other ambassador. I be- 
lieve he actually is an authority on English literature. 
Millet considers the Americans very little instructed in 
great State affairs. Another point made by Millet was 
that no agreement made by any Power with the American 
Executive was worth anything until countersigned by Con- 
gress, which is jealous of its rights. The iron and the irony 
of the scrapped Treaties of Versailles have eaten into 
Millet's French soul. The American Constitution in fact 
confers an altogether unfair advantage upon an American 
Executive, who can sign an agreement, perhaps profit from 
it for years, and then have it scrapped by Congress, and 
especially by the Senate, when it becomes inconvenient. 
No country can deal with America on such terms. Set my- 
self to discover when a treaty is not a treaty, according to 
tbe Constitution, but could get no clear light. 

Thursday, November 3, 1921. It seems that the Govern- 
ment here are harking back for a policy to Mr. Secretary 
Hay's principles of 1899 which affirmed the need for the 
open door in China. Mr. Hughes seems disposed to re- 
affirm those principles and adapt them to present condi- 
tions. In this case all the annexations, spheres of influ- 
ence, leases of territory, and concessions acquired by 



MAURICE LOW 421 

Powers in China may possibly come under review. Most 
of the Powers accepted the Hay principles. Few acted 
upon them. There will therefore be an anxious examina- 
tion of consciences and troublesome hours. 

Lunched with Maurice Low, Morning Post correspond- 
ent here, at the Shoreham Hotel. An amusing talk of 
American personalities and things. Low has been here 
twenty-five years. Very shrewd and well informed. Had a 
look at the shops. Bought some books at Brentano's. The 
shopman, when he heard my name, told me of the rush for 
my book when it appeared and how unfortunate it was 
that it was out of print at the moment of greatest demand. 
A representative of the International News Association, 
which feeds six hundred papers, interviewed me for a long 
spell. 

I must record Simonds's story of the American Senator 
who had been attacked in an anonymous book. He 
thought he knew the writer and wrote a venomous and 
truculent letter to a man who was not the author. This 
man replied: 

Sir, 

In reply to your letter: 

A. I did not write the book. 

B. I wish to God that I had written it. 

Yours respectfully 



Dined with Philippe Millet and M. Andre Geraud 
(Pertinax) at the Willard Hotel. We told each other many 
tales of personalities and things and discussed current 
events. Is there any other category of persons who know 
so much over so wide a field as successful journalists.'* 
Very amusing that not one of the French delegation can 
speak one word of English and that Viviani thinks that 
his dramatic oratory makes him understood by all and the 
equal of Balfour! Why did not they send Barrere.'* These 
Frenchmen who are accustomed to their pleasant wines 



422 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

are much upset by the Prohibition laws here. I think it 
makes them regard hfe and America with more gloomy 
sentiments than if the flowing bowl circulated. We had a 
good talk over China and Japan, and were all somewhat 
Blandian. Bland's "China, Japan, and Korea" is cer- 
tainly the best of the many books published this year 
on this aspect of the work of the Conference. It is a pity 
that he is not here. Sir John Jordan is coming with Balfour, 
so I suppose that our delegation will know what they are 
talking about, but Bland has more recent first-hand infor- 
mation. 

We have a galaxy of journalistic talent. Wickham 
Steed, W. F. Bullock, and W. H. Lewis for the Times, 
Maurice Low for the Morning Post, H. G. Wells for the 
New York World, Bonsai for the new morning Westminster 
Gazette, and J. A. Spender is coming. H. W. Nevinson for 
the Manchester Guardian, P. W. Wilson for the Daily News, 
Philippe Millet for the Petit Parisien, Geraud for the Echo 
de Paris, F. D. Williams and P. Weir for Reuters, W. A. 
Crawford and M. Buckley for the Central News, and I. G. 
Hamilton for the Daily Chronicle. Some of these are 
syndicating their articles over here. I have the New York 
Times, which syndicates my articles to a number of good 
papers at Boston, Pittsburgh, etc., and have been asked 
to write by the New York Herald, so I shall have a satis- 
factory platform, I think. There are fifty-one Japanese 
journalists, eight Chinese, and many Canadians, Aus- 
tralians, Indians, and Frenchmen. It will not be the 
easiest thing in the world to send cables to the taste of 
England and America. The respective atmospheres are 
so different. 

Friday, November 4, 1921. I sent off yesterday the news 
that the American naval plan was ready, and followed it 
up to-day by some rumoured details and some tentative 
observations. Saw the Ambassador in the afternoon and 
told him what I had said. He thought that I was on the 
right lines. We discussed China, Japan, and other sub- 
jects. We agree that it is absurd to attack the Govern- 



MR. ELLIOT GOODWIN 423 

ment here about the secrecy of the meetings of the dele- 
gates. The American Government are most anxious foi 
full publicity, but to disclose all the necessary and inev- 
itable differences of opinion on plans as they develop is a 
frank absurdity and would make free discussion a farce 
and a successful issue impracticable. 

There was an afternoon party going on when we left the 
Ambassador's sanctum, and crowds of people came in for 
tea and talk, especially ladies. Geddeses and goddesses. 
The Ambassador and his wife are very popular and suc- 
cessful hosts. Lady Harcourt turned up, but is only 
passing through, I was introduced to a great number of 
people, so many that I forget their names, all but pretty 
Mrs. Bliss, whom I was glad to see again. Her husband 
is at the State Department. Nearly everybody said they 
knew all about me and had read my last book. Met Com- 
mander Brown, our assistant Naval Attache, who at- 
tracted me and looks a good man. 

Saturday^ November 5, 1921. Went round to the Em- 
bassy for a talk with General Bethell and Major Bridge, 
of our Military Attache Staff, and also saw Commander 
Brown again. Talked with Simonds at the Club. He does 
not think that America will commit herself to any re- 
sponsibilities in Asia any more than in Europe, and that 
we shall be leaning on a broken reed if we think the reverse. 
Lunched with Mr. Goodwin. We walked round to his 
Chamber of Commerce, which now has fourteen hundred 
and fifty affiliated local branches and an income of 
$750,000. The map showing the branches is most illumi- 
nating. If one draws a north-and-south line through the 
centre of the United States, practically all the great com- 
mercial area is east of the line except a few widely scattered 
districts on the Pacific seaboard. The Middle West, with 
Chicago for industrial capital, contains the bulk, and then 
there is the Eastern Coast block with New York for centre. 
One must convince the Middle West if one wants to en- 
list American business enterprise in any great scheme. 
Between the Mississippi and the Pacific littoral there is 



424 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

a vast region which is almost arid commercially, but of 
course there is all the life-giving agricultural part of the 
country besides. 

The Chamber has a good sound organisation and Good- 
win is the resident Vice-Chairman. It was begun under 
Taft only nine years ago and is constantly extending. It 
is very influential and steers clear of politics. Its purpose 
is national and it patronises the International Chamber 
of Commerce which met in London this year. It publishes 
a little magazine monthly called The Nation's Business^ 
and I read the November number to-night. Goodwin has 
a taste for perfecting office equipment. I saw a room for 
sixteen typewriters in which all were silent machines. 
Wondered whether the typists were too. In another room 
were three automatic typewriters. One presses a button 
and the machine begins to type furiously, the keys 
moving rapidly as though touched by fairy fingers. It is 
fed from below by a scroll punctured in advance. Three 
machines can work at once under only one supervisor. A 
little piece of magic, admirable for duplicating circular 
letters, orders, etc. 

I was photographically victimised again and then went 
ofi^ to Mrs. Bliss's house in Massachusetts Avenue. Found 
another tea-fight going on and another large assembly. 
Was introduced to heaps of people. They all seem a very 
friendly and sociable set of folk here, and life must be 
agreeable. But in the summer it must be very hot, almost 
too hot for heavy work, I suspect. The Jap reception was 
put off to-night on account of Mr. Hara's ^ assassination in 
Tokio. We do not yet know what political effect this sad 
event may have. 

Monday, November 7, 1921. Lunched with the Good- 
wins yesterday in the Georgetown district. A pleasant 
old-fashioned house with many nice old things and the 
whole atmosphere was English country house. Most 
charming people with two jolly children. We had much 
talk of things here and of Americanisms in literature and 

* Japanese Prime Minister. 



MOUNT VERNON 425 

conversation. Then saw the garden and went for a walk 
round the new quarter where stands a fine equestrian 
statue of Sheridan at what the French would call a rond 
point. A lot of fine houses growing up round. Saw a lot 
of people and read a mass of literature. 

To-day went to Riggs's Bank. No one can live here in a 
hotel under sixty pounds a week. A ruinous country. This 
bank declared its last dividend to be twenty-six per cent. 
Heaps of little banks grew up like mushrooms during the 
war, but are now being absorbed for branch offices by the 
big banks. Ran against Lady Annesley in the street. She 
was looking well, and I was glad to see her again. 

Attended a lunch to all the foreign journalists at the 
Shoreham. Oulahan presided right well. Many English, 
Dominion, French, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese jour- 
nalists. A friendly meeting. After lunch we all got up and 
announced our names and papers. One Jap said his name 
in English was "high mountain and swift river," but that 
he was not so high as a mountain and his English did not 
flow so swiftly as a river. He was a little chap. 

Wednesday, November 9, 1921. Much occupied these two 
days in seeing American officials and foreigners and in 
learning the regulations for Friday's ceremony and the 
Conference. But I slipped away yesterday afternoon and 
motored to Mount Vernon, across the Potomac in Virginia, 
to see Washington's home, distant sixteen miles. I was 
disagreeably impressed on the way by the slatternly, un- 
finished, and unkempt appearance of the land and the ham- 
lets. It is so untidy that it looks as if an invading army had 
traversed it. I suppose that it takes a few centuries for a 
country to arrive at the garden aspect of England. The 
chief objects in the scenery were huge glaring advertise- 
ments on every side. It was only in the woods that one felt 
at home, and there the soft autumn tints were both varied 
and beautiful. 

Mount Vernon stands on a commanding position over 
the river. It is of wood painted creamy white to resemble 
stone, has a high piazza on the river front twenty-five feet 



426 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

high with square pillars and tiled floor. Over the piazza is 
an open balcony. There is a cupola over the centre of the 
house surmounted by an old vane. In the house are some 
six sitting-rooms on the ground floor, with most of Wash- 
ington's old furniture, pictures, china, etc. These rooms 
open direct upon the river and entrance fronts of the house 
by doors — there is really no back — and they must be 
uncommonly chilly in the winter, and draughty always. 
Above are the bedrooms, of which the room where Wash- 
ington died is the best, and above again darkish attics, 
labelled guest-rooms, with dormer windows opening 
through the sloping, red-tiled roof. It is Anne merging 
into Georgian. 

At each end of the house are colonnades sweeping round 
towards the back, right, and left, where come the kitchens, 
oflSces, and a succession of house and farm buildings. Each 
stands by itself, I suppose to diminish the loss by fire. 
Smoking is forbidden. The grounds are good and the lawn 
front sloping towards the river quite attractive. It is all 
very well kept up and with as great veneration as Goethe's 
house. I suppose that some of the out-buildings were for 
slaves. The roof is covered with demurely red tiles, and 
the effect on the whole is pleasant, Old-World, and home- 
like. The central part of the house is ninety-six feet by 
thirty and the rooms are not large. The date of it, they 
say, is 1743. It is an agreeable gentleman-farmer's Vir- 
ginia home and it is a place of which an owner might be- 
come very fond. Washington seems to have been a good 
business man and to have made a good deal of money in 
real estate, etc., in his business days. 

Going back I branched off to see the National Cemetery 
at Arlington, the scene of next Friday's ceremony when 
the unknown American soldier from France will be buried 
with all the honours. Arlington House was the home of 
General Robert Lee when the Civil War broke out. The 
estate fell into the hands of the Government and was made 
the national resting-place for soldiers and sailors who have 
died for their country. A fine site on the undulating and 



ARLINGTON 427 

wooded Virginia hills. Many thousands of graves of men 
who fell in 1861 and subsequent wars. About ten thousand 
of those who died in France have been transferred here. 
There is a great white marble Greco-Roman amphitheatre 
— it is actually a complete circle — to the southern part 
of the cemetery to hold some seven thousand people who 
will witness the culminating part of the coming ceremony. 
I saw the grave for the unknown warrior close to the south- 
ern entrance in a very conspicuous and isolated position. 
I register a very fervent wish that our dead warriors may 
some day have such a beautiful and noble resting-place so 
accessible from the capital. The tombstones, or rather 
headstones, are usually quite small, of marble or granite, 
and bear the name, number, and State of the dead warrior. 
Whichever way one looks at the headstones, they are in 
line. The presence of Confederate dead, and a fine monu- 
ment in the midst, are touching. I know nothing like it 
anywhere. 

I found Pershing and the General Staff when I called to 
see them more fussed about the ceremony than I ever 
found them to be over a battle in France. They have no 
precedent, and everybody keeps on interfering and want- 
ing alterations. Pershing told me how much impressed he 
was by the simple dignity of the ceremony in London, where 
he attended a fortnight ago to lay a wreath on the corre- 
sponding grave at Westminster. 

I also saw General Buat yesterday. I think the French 
delegation has come with some cherished plan of resusci- 
tating the Anglo-American guarantee of France, but I 
fancy that America will not look at it, while France's re- 
cent action, whereby she has made peace with Kemal to 
our detriment, does not encourage us to help her out. Cur- 
zon seems to have sent them a stiff note about it, but 
Buat truly says that the trouble has all arisen because we 
would not make up our minds to back the Greeks or to 
oppose them. That has been our vacillating policy all 
along. 

I am contracting the iced-water habit. It is more per- 



428 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

ni'cious than drink. "Who said that America was the land of 
cold water and hot air? 

This evening there was a dinner at the British Embassy 
to the British press representatives here, and some thirty 
or forty people responded to Sir Auckland Geddes's invita- 
tion. I sat on the left of the Ambassador and Wickham 
Steed on his right. We had a good dinner and it was all 
very well done. Steed opened the speeches and I summed 
up after Steed, Maurice Low, H. P. Wilson, Bullen, Ham- 
ilton, and others had spoken. We had a really good lot of 
speeches, each man putting forward his own views. Then 
I summed up, going through the points and covering the 
questions of China and Japan. Lord Lee also spoke and 
Sir Robert Borden was present. Most of the Embassy 
were there, including Chilton the Chancellor, Craigie the 
First Secretary, Commander Brown, and others. I teased 
H.E. upon extracting from the correspondents all their 
views and having given nothing in response. The sense of 
the meeting was against the continuance of the alliance 
with Japan, and Lee, in his speech, was very keen on draw- 
ing closer to America, but he was very reserved. Wells 
came in late, but did not speak. He told me that he was 
astonished at my sanity! I ended up by eulogising the 
Ambassador's service during the war, as I had long prom- 
ised myself to do at the first opportunity. I was sorry that 
Geddes was present, but I could not let slip the opportu- 
nity. A good, attentive, and appreciative audience. The 
first wine that I had tasted since leaving England, except 
some good old sherry at one friend's house. A good talk 
with Geddes and found him as interesting and well in- 
formed as ever. I hear golden opinions of him from resident 
English and Americans. He does not play for safety. He 
occas'onally errs. That is one reason given to me by Amer- 
icans why they like him so much : 

Thursday, November 10, 1921. Busy getting tickets and 
making preparation for the Conference. Lunched at the 
Metropolitan with General Squier, who told me of his work 
in the war, when he was given a billion dollars and told to 



MAJOR-GENERAL SQUIER 429 

produce enough aeroplanes to darken the sun immediately. 
There were not four men in America, he said, who knew 
one end of an aeroplane from another and the difficulties 
were stupendous. But he got his Liberty engine through 
and it was a huge success. To posterity Squier's most 
instructive contribution may be his diary of 1914 in France, 
a copy of which is now in the State Department. He went 
there at Lord K.'s request, which Ambassador Page in 
London and Herrick in Paris supported, not informing 
Washington. He was allowed to see everything and to go 
where he pleased. His diary tells everything. I recall meet- 
ing him at the front that year. I am sure that he will be a 
very frank and trustworthy chronicler of that period. 

To a tea-fight at the Baltimore Sun office in the after- 
noon. In the evening to the Press Club, which has been 
most hospitable in throwing open the place to us strangers. 
There was an entertainment, but chiefly speeches to tell us 
all the ways of Washington during the Conference time. 
At the end I was asked to speak, and after me spoke "the 
silver-tongued Bryan," who is an accomplished orator of 
the old stamp and made a sincere speech full of charming 
sentiments. 

Friday, November 11, 1921. Third anniversary of Armi- 
stice Day. The unknown hero's remains left the Capitol 
early and at 8.30 the guns announ<}ed the departure. Mo- 
tored to Arlington and had a seat in the top gallery with some 
colleagues, including Wells, Wilson, and Nevinson. The am- 
phitheatre is round and open to the skies. There is a colon- 
nade of two rows of marble pillars round it, over which is 
the gallery. The centre contains rows of marble seats and 
the place filled up gradually. The apse or stage had its 
front entirely covered with masses of flowers behind which 
the coffin was eventually deposited. The President, chief 
officials, and foreign delegations were all there, and in the 
boxes of the colonnade tier were all the diplomatic missons 
here. There were hymns, prayers, a solo, and the Presi- 
dent's address. The amplifiers were turned on. One could 
see the President speaking, and note his rare gestures, but 



430 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

not hear his voice as he spoke. But the amplifiers made his 
voice heard all over the amphitheatre and to the waiting 
crowds outside too. The extension to 'Frisco worked all 
right. The voice seemed to come from the skies. All very 
dignified and impressive. A fine day with a good deal of 
sun, but still autumnal. The photographers on the top- 
most parts of the building were an odious, regrettable, but 
I suppose necessary, incident. The masses of people out- 
side could be seen by us through the colonnades. Every- 
thing went well. Beatty and Cavan laid the V.C. on the 
grave, and Cavan in a most dignified manner spoke a pas- 
sage from Corinthians ^ only, instead of imitating the usual 
florid utterances of European dignitaries on these occasions. 
The hero was finally interred outside, and the last act be- 
fore the close was the approach of the Crow Indian Chief, 
who deposited his war bonnet and coup stick on the tomb. 
The Chief and his followers were all in full war paint. I 
believe that there were one or two black soldiers with col- 
ours at the grave, but I saw no blacks at all in the amphi- 
theatre. P. W. Wilson called it all the apotheosis of non- 
conformity. Going back, the roads were so blocked that 
my taxi took three hours to cover three and one-half miles. 
I would have walked, but there was no footpath. I felt 
myself back at the Flirey cross-roads at the battle of St. 
Mihiel. The control of traffic is not America's long suit. 
Dined with Mr. and Miss Mary Wiborg, Mr. and Mrs. 
Wilson, and Mr. Pulitzer at my hotel. A very agreeable 
talk. Washington was lit up at night. 

Saturday, November 12, 1921. This has been an aston- 
ishing day, indeed. The Conference met for the first time 
at 10.30 A.M. in the Continental Memorial Hall, otherwise 
known as the Hall of the Daughters of the American Revo- 
lution. A fine central hall, somewhat like a large theatre 
without a stage. A big parterre where was placed one large 
table and two at rgiht angles to it with a few others and a 
table opposite the Chairman for translators and stenog- 

1 Cavan told me that the King commanded him to repeat this text, which was 
on the King's floral offering to the dead hero. 



OPENING SESSION 431 

raphers. The press was well looked after on the floor under 
the galleries. There were galleries on three sides of the hall, 
and behind the Chairman were four small boxes. The 
Ameircans were on the right at the top table, English on 
their left, and Italians at the cross-table to the left of the 
English. The French sat at the other cross-table on the 
left of the Americans and the Japanese on the French right. 
The French seemed furious that they should not be at the 
top table and Jusserand was white and clenched his fists. 
The top table was purely Anglo-Saxon from end to end. 
The Chinese, Belgians, and Portuguese had seats lower 
down. All the delegation staffs were catered for and the 
arrangements were good. The galleries were filled by Con- 
gressmen, Supreme Court Judges, oflBcials, etc., and the 
boxes by the President's wife and friends, I imagine. We 
all saw and heard everything perfectly. The place was 
prettily decorated with palms and flags and was well 
lighted, mainly by electricity, as the natural light was not 
strong. 

The President arrived when all the company were seated, 
and made quite a good address of welcome, simple, dig- 
nified, and in good taste. Then Balfour in a graceful speech, 
much cheered, proposed Secretary of State Hughes for 
Chairman and he was unanimously elected. Hughes then 
rose to make an historic statement. We found out soon 
enough that he had a concrete plan to suggest, and a very 
drastic one too. A simple, straightforward, business-like 
address with nothing to indicate its dramatic conclusion. 
He suggested a naval holiday for ten years during which 
there was to be no shipbuilding, and for all to scrap numer- 
ous ships amounting in all to some 845,740 tons for Amer- 
ica, 583,375 tons for England, and 448,928 tons for Japan. 
These included all the post-Jutland new ships building and 
projected and also many old pre-dreadnought ships. If 
America and Japan are hardest hit in new ships, it is be- 
cause they have been building most lately. Hughes gave 
the scheme quite clearly and will describe it further in a 
writtenmemorandum. The total of ships to be scrapped 



432 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

by the three Powers is 1,878,043 tons, and within three 
months of the agreement we are to have: England, twenty- 
two capital ships of 604,450 tons; United States, eighteen 
of 500,650; and Japan, ten of 299,700. The age factor is 
said to have been taken into account in this estimate. We 
are all bound over not to replace ships for ten years and 
then to limit replacements to an agreed maximum of cap- 
ital ships, namely, 500,000 each for England and the United 
States, and 300,000 for Japan. Subject to these conditions 
we are not to replace battleships till they are twenty years 
old, nor to make them over 35,000 tons each. Auxiliary 
ships — i.e., cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft 
carriers — are to bear definite relation to the number of 
capital ships. 

We were all astounded at the far-reaching character of 
the plan, of which our delegation had no knowledge when 
they entered the hall. But the plan, however drastic, 
seems fair and sincere, and America is offering to scrap 
ships upon which she has spent $330,000,000 already. It 
is true that there are rumours whispered that the new 
American ships are failures owing to their electric pro- 
pulsion having failed, but I disbelieve this, and even if 
it were so it is to everyone's advantage to arrest naval 
competition. I saw the Ambassador and some Japs in the 
afternoon. The latter do not seem opposed in principle, 
and their technical experts sitting close to me in the 
hall were all one broad happy smile when Hughes an- 
nounced what America proposed to scrap. Our real 
anxiety is for the dockyard towns and for SheflSeld, 
Vickers, Armstrong, Birkenhead, and so forth. The 
Clyde will also be hard hit. Naturally we must make sure 
of France and Italy, but in view of our financial position, 
and the need for ending the American-Japanese compe- 
tition, we can be fairly contented. If we had sprung such 
a plan unheralded upon the Americans, I think it would 
have been rejected. Mr. Secretary Hughes sunk in 
thirty -five minutes more ships than all the admirals of the 
world have destroyed in a cycle of centuries. More, he 



THE AMERICAN PROPOSALSJ 433 

appeared to me to condemn by anticipation all the arma- 
ments of the globe. The armies of the world seem to me 
beckoned towards the cell of the condemned. Teaching by 
example, America makes a great renunciation and the 
most magnificent political gesture of all history. 

It is an audacious and astonishing scheme and took us 
off our feet. We seemed spell-bound. The few men to 
whom I spoke babbled incoherently. What will they say 
in London.'^ To see a British First Lord of the Admiralty, 
and another late First Lord, sitting at a table with the 
American Secretary of State telling them how many ships 
they might keep and how many they should scrap, struck 
me as a delightfully fantastic idea. Yet I cannot see any 
real danger in it if all States follow suit, especially as I 
believe that the mastodons can never cross an ocean to 
attack people the other side of it, and in any case we are 
all three in the same position relatively and with much 
smaller naval estimates both for building and for main- 
tenance. But a lot of our naval personnel will have to go, 
and that will be troublesome. 

The Congressmen in the galleries took charge a bit to- 
day. They seemed to regard the Conference as a Repub- 
lican Convention, cheered as they liked, and even called 
upon Briand for a speech and made him and other chief 
delegates rise and speak. This cannot go on or no more 
open meetings can be held. We cannot have an American 
claque which might groan instead of cheer, or make some 
other undisciplined inroad upon the liberty of action of the 
delegates. However, it is their way and they were enthusi- 
astic. So Hughes wisely let them have their way, even if 
he seemed rather taken aback by their unexpected fro- 
wardness. I had never heard Briand speak before. He is 
a firm, clear speaker with a clarion voice of a timbre that 
carries, and he held himself stiflQy and did not go in for 
animation or gestures. He dominates a sitting at once 
and is masterful. But he has not L, G.'s range, I think, 
nor particularly his humour. We came out in a trance, 
not quite sure whether we were walking on our heads or 



434 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

our heels. Something had cracked. The helmet of Mars, 
perhaps. 

Spent the day reflecting over it all and then cabled to 
the D. T. giving an account and some comments on the 
proceedings of an eventful day which alone made coming 
here worth while. But though I admired Hughes's courage 
and plain speaking, we have yet to see his spirit of concili- 
ation and compromise. He spoke harshly at times. He has 
strength, courage, driving power, and he will have great 
prestige if this Conference succeeds, but we have yet to 
learn whether he has the necessary art of conciliation. 
All the same the American proposal has tremendous im- 
port and may go through, though we may have to be stiff 
about France, as she has a great army and we have none. 
I hear from the Ambassador that the American Govern- 
ment finally adopted their naval plan only late last night. 
If it had not been so, they would scarcely have concealed 
their plan from some of the sharpest eyes and quickest 
ears in Europe and America. 

Sunday, November 13, 1921. This morning came out 
Mr. Hughes's memorandum which says a certain number 
of things which were not in his speech. It gives the names 
of the capital ships which America will keep and which we 
and Japan are graciously permitted to keep also. It lays 
down the law about replacement of all types of war vessels. 
We may replace ships lost by accidental destruction. Of 
Hughes's so-called auxiliary ships, including cruisers, etc., 
we and America are allowed 450,000 tons and Japan 
270,000, but we are not asked to scrap surplus ships of 
these classes. We and America are to have submarines 
up to 90,000 tons and Japan up to 54,000. This is more 
than we have ever had, and not what we came here for. 
Generally, all auxiliary ships whose keels have been laid 
down before Armistice Day can be completed. We and 
the United States may have 80,000 tons of aircraft- 
carrying ships and Japan 48,000. The life of cruisers is 
fixed at seventeen years, of destroyers and submarines at 
twelve years, and of carriers at twenty years. No auxil- 



PUBLIC ACQUIESCENCE 435 

iary ship is to carry guns over eight-inch. More important, 
perhaps, is Article 27, which says that the hmitation of 
naval aircraft is not proposed. We also are to bind our- 
selves not to sell combatant ships to other Powers nor to 
acquire them. 

The plan meets with the general, even frantically en- 
thusiastic, approval of the American press, and the Jap- 
anese appear to be satisfied. Our people seem to acquiesce 
in the principle of the plan. But the secondary navies 
must be roped in or some one of them may become a rival 
of our greatly reduced navy. Also our Government will 
have to decide about the auxiliary ships, in which branch 
we shall or may be too weak for our oversea stations if the 
fleets are to be properly accompanied. There are a few 
dissentient American voices which say that the United 
States plan is too generous, but on the whole all opinion is 
a trifle stampeded by the grandiose and startling char- 
acter of the plan and does not look into its after effects 
very much. I am not thrilled by the ten -year period. We 
are likely to be compelled by experience to recognise 
many flaws in the plan, and I should like a shorter agree- 
ment till we see how the plan works. Also one must ob- 
serve that America is saved by her isolation, size, popu- 
lation, and resources from risks of attack, and Japan by 
her great army. We are not self-contained as is America 
nor armed as is Japan, so we are in a different position 
and no account is taken of the fact. There is nothing as 
yet in the plan to prevent secondary navies from be- 
coming rivals to ours, and we must protect ourselves 
against such risk. Again, an alliance between secondary 
navies might equal our reduced navies, and we must 
secure ourselves in this matter too. Neither America nor 
possibly Japan is in any way constrained to support us if 
we get into difficulties after signing. 

Much reading and work. Heaps of letters and invita- 
tions, all requesting replies. As I am off home in a month, 
I am limiting my engagements to the minimum. Went to 
Frank Simonds's house in the afternoon and made his 



436 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

wife's acquaintance. A large gathering and many inter- 
esting people. Looked in at the Jap reception at night. 
Was introduced to the delegates and to General Tanaka. 
There seem to be two Admiral Katos. Spoke to Kato I, a 
man of marked character and distinction, a slight figure 
with a mask of a face. He gave the surprising news that 
last Saturday's Conference was interesting. Tanuka told 
me that he knew nothing of army plans. Burdened with 
this weighty information, I hastily left, having remained 
there five minutes. But the Jap Ambassador seems a 
human being and I shall look him up again. Note that 
correspondents now come to interview me at dinner. 
Think I will send them on to the Japs. They deserve it. 
Both. 

Monday, November 14, 1921. On thinking further over the 
plan, I am still more for modifying the ten-year period, in 
the sense of granting power to build during the period. 
Our capital ships are much older than the American and 
will mostly be scrap iron in ten years. No armament firm 
will keep going its plant uselessly for ten years without 
orders, and there will be no one to build the replacing ships 
when the ten years are up. There will also be a tremen- 
dous lot of replacement building required at the end of the 
term. I should also like to see, every four years — that will 
make it just after, and not before every Presidential elec- 
tion — a formal consultation of the three Powers to con- 
sider any alterations which experience may suggest in the 
scheme. Further, I believe that, though Balfour has only 
suggested a limitation, this is an unequalled occasion for 
proposing the total abolition of submarines, and I half be- 
lieve that it might be carried on the top of the wave of 
enthusiasm. We came here to limit naval armaments and 
are actually asked to increase our supply of submarines. 

To-day the commissions or committees are distributing 
themselves for the sub-committee work and wrangling 
about secrecy versus publicity. Went off in the afternoon 
and had a pleasant talk with Mrs. Marshall Field, Mrs. 
Harriman, and another lady who was there, and then went 



LORD RIDDELL AND WILLERT 437 

to Mrs. Grafton Minot's house, where I found Miss Mary 
(Hoity) Wiborg, Lady Beatty, the American Admiral Law, 
and M. Geraud. Another pleasant talk. By the way, Mrs. 
Marshall Field said that our diplomatic people knew only 
Washington, Boston, and a few fashionable resorts, and 
little of the Middle West whence she comes. Yet there was 
the real, active, palpitating life of America. I told her that 
it was the same in every country and would continue to be 
so until the F.O. sent orders to change things. When a 
Foreign Minister runs round to see places that I have seen 
this year, he would know something. Meanwhile, as it was 
in the beginning . . . amen. 

Geraud good fun about the French press and their much- 
missed wine. They sent a deputation[to Briand to demand 
some of the champagne that he brought over and offered 
to pay for it! It is odd that the French are the only na- 
tion who speak French at the Conference. So they seem to 
be the only foreigners here. The boredom of having all 
the speeches translated into French after delivery, and 
of hearing all the French speeches translated into English, 
is simply intolerable. 

Lord Riddell is here as the unofiBcial mentor of the press 
with Sir Arthur Willert acting for the F.O. as publicity 
agent. Not much love lost between them, I guess. Riddell 
called to see me and we talked for an hour. We covered 
pretty well the whole ground. A sane man with insight and 
experience. We gave each other a number of notions. 
Bullen is down again from New York. We are distributing 
the work here between us. 

Tuesday, November 15, 1921. To-day at 11 a.m. the sec- 
ond plenary session of the Conference took place in the Con- 
tinental Memorial Hall under the same conditions as the first 
except that President Harding was not there. Mr. Bal- 
four rose to continue the discussion on the Hughes pro- 
gramme and made a good speech which was received with 
much hand-clapping after its main periods. He stated that 
last Saturday would be celebrated as a date imprinted upon 
grateful hearts and that he counted himself to be among the 



438 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

fortunate of the earth in having been present on the mem- 
orable occasion. After some graceful compliments to Mr. 
Hughes, he pointed out the peculiar position of the Brit- 
ish Empire in comparison with that of the United States. 
He expressed his approval of the scheme and said it would 
receive full, loyal, and complete co-operation on his part. 
He did not go into details, but suggested reduction of 
the total tonnage and size of submarines, and briefly al- 
luded to questions of replacement, but said that the struc- 
ture of the scheme was clear and firm and would remain as 
it was presented by its original architect. He considered 
that it made idealism a practical proposition. A good pas- 
sage led up to the conclusion that the opening day of the 
Congress, as he called it, was one of the landmarks in human 
civilisation. 

Admiral Kato spoke next in Japanese which was clearly 
and loudly translated into English by another Japanese. 
Premising that he had no gifts of oratory, Kato said that 
Japan deeply appreciated the sincerity of purpose evi- 
denced by the plan, and was satisfied that it would materi- 
ally relieve the nations of wasteful expenditures and could 
not fail to make for the peace of the world. Japan accepted 
the proposal in principle and was ready to proceed with 
a sweeping reduction in her naval armaments. But he 
said that a nation must be provided with such armaments 
as are essential to its security and that this requirement 
must be fully weighed in the examination of the plan. He 
proposed to suggest some modifications respecting the 
tonnage basis for replacement. 

Mr. Schanzer (Italy) also spoke, and after expressing 
gratification referred to the question of the French and 
Italian navies and said that he did not think that they 
could be excluded from the general question and felt sure 
that they would be considered. Briand spoke last. He did 
not refer to Schanzer's proposal except to say that France 
was perhaps too weak for the necessities of national de- 
fence. So I doubt whether the supposed Franco-Italian 
agreement to co-operate here is very close. Then he turned 



MR. HUGHES'S SPEECH 439 

to land armaments, and said that France demanded that 
the question should be raised and that he intended to 
state publicly the position of France so that ail might see 
that she harboured no thought of disturbing the peace of 
the world. After Hughes had proposed an adjournment, 
Briand moved that the next public meeting should be at 
the call of the chair, and this was agreed to. 

Balfour was very effective to-day. He spoke extempore, 
very slowly, even haltingly at times, but was extremely 
good and the speech reads uncommonly w ell. He consulted 
a few words on a tiny sheet of paper when he came to 
the details, such as they were, and he addressed the Con- 
ference once as "ladies and gentlemen," which was natural 
as the galleries contained as many women as men. The 
house rose to him on several occasions, applauding loudly, 
and once standing up, though the speech made no appeal 
to any special springs of American feeling. 

I don't think that the French are very happy. They have 
not got on much. One of the sharpest of the Frenchmen 
here tells me that all Briand's information was at fault and 
that he expected to find England and the United States 
at loggerheads, when he could play Bismarck's old part of 
honest broker. He finds us cordially in unison and is non- 
plussed. I do not think that he wants France's fleet re- 
duced, and as there is no sign that Hughes will suggest any 
plan of land armament limitation, Briand wishes to bring 
out France's position clearly, when he should make a great 
speech and evoke much sympathy. But the time has 
passed for an Anglo-American guarantee or for passing a 
sponge over French debts to the United States. 

Frank Simonds had a lunch for Hughes after the morn- 
ing session and I went there. Glad to see J. A. Spender, 
who left London just as the old Westminster was making 
its bow as a new morning paper. Hughes made a little gem 
of a speech after lunch and was much more human and less 
stiff than at the Conference. I carried away the clear im- 
pression that he has larger views for the future than he is 
given credit for. He said that he first wished to accomplish 



440 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

the work of the day which was actually before him and 
then, when he came to other questions, the fact of his first 
success would be of advantage to him. So he has the fu- 
ture in mind and both he and Harding are accepting the 
responsibilities attendant to power, as every great Power 
has had to do in the past. He spoke well and appealed for 
our confidence in his sincerity. I told him that he already 
had it. It has never been in question. He is not going to 
stop at the first Washington Conference. That seems a 
certainty. This opens up a very wide horizon. 

Wednesday, November 16, 1921. Attended Riddell's 
press conference. New Navy Building, in the morning, and 
Balfour's conference at the Embassy at 6 p.m. Interesting 
to see how these things are done. Riddell is a distinct as- 
set here in liaison with the delegation and the foreign press. 
We do more for the world press than any other delegation, 
and I think it is appreciated, as it is all on American lines. 
But I did not much care to see A. J. B. with his gentle 
suavity of manner heckled by every sort of person of va- 
rious nationality. He did his best to reply to all, but when 
asked how many people there were in the British Empire, 
he was quite nonplussed and had no idea. He also sug- 
gested that the Anglo-Jap Treaty had no relation to China! 
I was relieved when the fire of questions ended. The for- 
eigners seem quite astonished to find that an English 
statesman need not be encyclopaedic. 

The first quiet day. No plenary session. The real 
business has begun and the delegates are busy. Saw a 
number of people. Am impressed with the multitude of 
motor-cars which crowd the streets and are always ranged 
along the pavements or parked in the centre of the broad 
streets, almost always without a chauffeur, as the owner 
drives. There can surely not be a housemaid in Washing- 
ton without a car. I believe this town has the second worst 
record for street accidents in America. I do not wonder. 
The streets are mainly asphalt, the cars very noiseless, 
and the horn is rarely sounded. The chauffeur does not 
pounce on foot passengers as in Paris, but the foot passen- 



CHINA 441 

ger has no rights, and if he gets run over it is just his own 
darned fault. The streets are very broad, the traffic con- 
fusing, and the cars move very fast. 

There is enough current work here to keep one busy all 
day. The Chinese memorandum with its ten principles 
comes out to-day and will be the basis for the discussion in 
committee. With these hot houses here I wonder any 
American survives. 

Thursday, November 17, 1921. In spite of the under- 
standing that the proceedings in the Far Eastern commit- 
tee were to be private the Washington Post comes out this 
morning with Hughes's preliminary statement in that com- 
mittee. It makes him say that his proposal of the open-door 
policy is advantageous to Japan, which would be on the 
threshold when the door was really opened. He is said to 
have brought up the question of mandates in the Pacific, 
and then to have sagely observed that in Eastern problems 
the first thing which suggested itself was China. He is 
said to have lauded China's ancient civilisation and intel- 
ligence, the industry of her people and her great dotential 
wealth, but to have added that China was now in diffi- 
culties and to have suggested that these were due to her 
recent change of government, which he compared with the 
delay which took place in American history before all the 
States agreed to the present Constitution. He is also said 
to have touched on other questions such as the mandates 
in the Pacific and trans-Pacific communication. 

Studied the Chinese memorandum and went to talk it 
over with X. It is practically a notice to all foreigners to 
quit China and to let go of her. The ten points are all 
principles, and Admiral Kato, whom I also saw to-day, said 
that if inquiry went into all the concrete cases arising out of 
those principles the Conference would last a considerable 
time. Yes, indeed ; All the same there is considerable sym- 
pathy on the British side with much of the memorandum. 
The Chinese are clever to have launched it in the press. It 
gives them the initiative and saves them from the need of 
demanding an open session to announce their views. From 



442 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

internal evidence there has been American help in pre- 
paring the plan. This is shown particularly in Article 7, 
which talks of the " well-established principle of construc- 
tion that grants shall be construed in favor of the grant- 
ors," a principle of American law, but one not acknowl- 
edged by English law, which determines a dispute over a 
grant by the text of the document itself. 

Admiral Kato, who made the reservation that he spoke 
only for himself, said that he regarded armaments as the 
main question before the Conference, and I do not think 
that his people are best pleased at seeing the whole Chinese 
puzzle thus thrown before the Conference for solution. He 
did not wish personally for the question to be debated in 
open session. He did not speak English well, and felt at a 
disadvantage. I gather from him that he is not in favour 
of abolishing submarines, while as to Balfour's suggestion 
of reducing the total submarine tonnage, he says that it 
depends upon what amount will remain for Japan, as he 
considers this arm indispensable to her. In short, we shall 
probably have no support anywhere if we raise this ques- 
tion, but all the same I am for raising it and for proposing 
prohibition, leaving the responsibility for the future use of 
this vile and unchivalrous arm to those who wish for it. | 

Lunched at the Embassy. A very pleasant party in- 
cluding Captain Little and Commander Brown, two com- 
petent submarine officers, and Captain Domville, a very 
shrewd sailor. Little came on board the K-7 when I was 
visiting her during the war. Domville was also on Tyr- 
whitt's flagship when I paid him a visit during the war. It 
is thought that the real trouble of permitting submarines 
to be built will come when some petty State gets hold of a 
few and holds others to ransom or blackmails them with 
this arm. Geddes is entirely of my opinion and personally 
is for total prohibition. 

It is suggested to me that, on the basis of the Hughes 
proposals, France's and Italy's ratio of capital ships should 
be under 200,000 each to our 500,000 and the Japanese 
300,000. Our first question in committee seems to have 



THE FRENCH POSITION 443 

been to ask America for her estimate for these Powers, but 
no answer has been given yet. It is also necessary that 
power should be taken by us to denounce the agreement if 
States like Russia or Germany begin some great naval 
programme hereafter. We need to take infinite precau- 
tions. Several points have had to be submitted to the 
home Government, and our naval staff out here has not 
suflScient representation of the construction branch or 
shipyards to enable them to test the full consequences of 
the American proposals. 

Various unpleasant cables from France, shrewish on the 
whole. It will be time enough to complain when the 
French allowance of ships is definitely allocated. It has 
not been done yet, so why this fuss.'* I suppose the French 
at home, like their delegates here, were totally misin- 
formed of the real position and it will be interesting to 
learn hereafter who conveyed to them a false notion of the 
situation. Jusserand has been here for nineteen years and 
on Count Sforza's principle ^ should have been moved on 
long ago, but some vow that he must know too much to 
have misled his people. Others say that his fine taste in 
English literature has not aided him to comprehend the 
Anglo-Saxon spirit. 

Sent my first general appreciation of the position here, 
based on Hughes's little private speech at Frank Simonds's 
luncheon. I am told to-day that the Washington Post's 
account of Hughes's remarks in committee is substantially 
correct. Got Bullen to raise the question of "privacy" at 
the press conference this morning. Some Americans must 
confuse privacy wdth privateering. But I only want to 
know where we are, and whether honourable understand- 
ings are made to be kept or to be broken. 

Many delicious stories at the Embassy to-day of the 
methods of evading drink prohibition laws. It seems that 
some small British island called Bimini, forty miles from 
the coast of America, is one of the main centres of the 
illicit trade, which comes chiefly from Scotland. People 

^ See diary for Italy. 



444 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

say that the British should not hanker for the cancelHng of 
their debts to America as the latter has already paid Scot- 
land an equivalent sum. The greater part of the American 
customs service seems to be in the business. Price of a 
bottle of whiskey anything from twelve to fifty shillings. 
It is obtainable anywhere by anyone who will pay for it. 
There is almost a minimum of concealment. 

Friday, November 18, 1921. I have been sending off a 
cable daily to the D. T. in the morning and it appears in 
the New York Times simultaneously with the publication in 
London. It is syndicated by the Times and their group of 
papers here. Went to Mrs. Mark Sullivan's in the after- 
noon and then on to the Embassy, where I was glad to 
meet Mrs. Lawrence Townsend, an old friend of Brussels 
days, when her husband was the U.S. Minister there and 
she was one of the most popular hostesses. A very large 
party and many nice people. Our Ambassador and his 
wife keep open house and all Washington responds. In the 
evening a few of us gathered to hear some words of wisdom 
from a good authority. It seems on the whole that the 
Conference has been getting on to-day, but that the dis- 
armament plan of Hughes has displayed some strange 
results on being microscopically examined by the naval 
experts. It is clear that first one and then another Power 
will in turn control the seas — provided battleships con- 
trol anything — and again that the conditions for replac- 
ing auxiliary ships laid down in the memorandum are 
twice as favourable to the United States as to us and that 
Hughes never grasped the fact until our experts pointed it 
out to him. 

Saturday, November. \9,'\Q'i\. To-day the Japs seem to 
have been friendly to the Chinese memorandum when it 
was discussed by the Far Eastern Commission. The arma- 
ment people also met and continued to dissect the Hughes 
plan. A report that some United States naval officers have 
incurred reprimand for criticising their own Government's 
plans. President Harding told the press last night that he 
was gratified — the awful but convenient Roj^al expres- 



COMMANDER BROWN 445 

sion — at the progress made, and did not anticipate any 
trouble with Congress. He said that reduction of naval 
armament would not require sanction by Congress, but 
that the latter might have to approve a naval agreement. 
Anything in the form of a treaty would have to be ratified by 
the Senate. But mere understandings regarding either the 
limitation of armaments or the Far East — that is to say 
an agreement not taking the form of a treaty — would not 
necessarily require Congressional sanction. Perhaps not, 
but the partitions between understandings, agreements, 
and treaties seem pretty thin, and after our illusions at Ver- 
sailles we can consider nothing valid unless ratified by the 
Senate. I must take an American legal opinion upon the 
question — when is a treaty not a treaty .^^ 

Visited Mrs. Townsend and met many nice people and 
some pretty ladies. Wanted to pay a call on Commander 
Brown and his wife in Chevy Chase beyond the "Million 
Dollar" bridge. Found my taxi had to go back for differ- 
ent "tabs" to be carried fore and aft on quitting the inner 
circle of the town. Got there late. A pleasant and quiet 
wooden house well out of the town. The Naval Attache 
and some younger men from the Embassy and others, in- 
cluding the Third Secretary, Arthur Yencken, an Austra- 
lian who strikes me as a young man of intelligence. I like 
the Commander. A real good man with sound judgement. 
We had a lot of talk about the naval plan and all agreed 
that we might have a reaction after the ebullition of senti- 
ment, or "slop" as one of them called it, during the past 
week. But our official sailors, from Beatty downwards, are 
displaying a partiality for the American plan which I 
should not have anticipated. 

There are, however, symptoms of hostility already man- 
ifest, here and at home. The American Navy does not like 
losing its best ships. The great West Virginia was launched 
only yesterday and is due for scrapping. Some high naval 
oflBcials are said to be criticising the plan very forcibly in 
private. The Hearst papers are out to wreck the Confer- 
ence. At home the Saturday Review discovers that at a 



446 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

certain moment the control of the seas will pass to Amer- 
ica. So it will, and afterwards to us. You can't put navies 
on a bed of Procrustes. You cannot make necessarily un- 
equal things equal. The Morning Post at home attacks the 
stopping of work on the four improved Hoods, which act 
is having a good effect here. A little food for national jeal- 
ousy and some country may flare up. Sentiment and reli- 
gion and love of humanity are great compelling influences 
which have stampeded all this country and apparently 
most of the world, but sooner or later nasty cold reflection 
and national antipathies may change the situation. If 
Hughes does not end by throwing out the proposal of com- 
pulsory arbitration as the final aim and by dealing with 
currencies, I doubt whether this plan of curing a symptom 
of disease and not the disease itself will win through. A 
few people in America have taken up this leading theme of 
my Atlantic Monthly article, without acknowledgement, 
but the idea has not penetrated the people nor visibly the 
Government. There will be no lasting good done until it 
does. But perhaps it is best to postpone this part of the 
plan till we get through economics, land armaments, and 
Russia. 

A strange thing, this American Constitution. Framed 
by a set of Colonial country squires with strong conserva- 
tive instincts, and at the close of the eighteenth century 
when modern ideas had not the force which they have now, 
it is a strange medley of old and new, giving the President 
all power and yet almost none, and allowing the State to 
be governed by any wave of generous or spurious senti- 
mentalism which may sweep through the country. The 
increased rapidity and facility of communicating news aid 
the rapid march of the prairie fire of thought. The tend- 
ency may often be not to do what the leading men know 
is right, but what the people wish, whether they be well-or 
ill-informed. I am persuaded that the men ruling here at 
present are sincere, high-minded, and well-intentioned. 
In the people the minds of the more intelligent are very 
clean and there is a hatred of unfairness. But there is also 



AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS 447 

a mass of very uninstructed opinion which has to be reck- 
oned with and only sees simple and visible things. This 
mass may be manipulated by bad people, especially those 
controlling a large number of newspapers. 

The authorities here are as accessible in a broad sense as 
ours are inaccessible. Any representatives of any paper 
can see the President once or twice a week and the Secre- 
tary of State daily and ask them any questions they like. 
That gives pleasure and satisfaction, though the amount 
of news to be gathered by these interviews is compara- 
tively slight. The actual area covered by each big paper is 
not large, nor consequently is the circulation. But the 
syndicate business spreads the influence of the best papers 
far and wide, and some of the best writers now syndicate 
themselves and do not belong to any paper. These voices 
carry farthest. One of the men who are doing this tells me 
that he has thirty-four million readers daily. Divided by 
four to allow for the sanguine American temperament, 
it is still large. Still the country is vast, the interests varied, 
and local talent considerable. So the big papers all over 
America do not always speak with the same voice, except 
in a case like this Conference where every paper draws its 
opinion from the Capital. It is less the press than the real 
and fundamental interests of each quarter of the country 
which ought to be studied before one can foretell what 
opinion will be given in any given case. The Presidential 
election is a temporary outburst of political insanity, and 
no one can count on anything at that time or for six months 
before it. Ambassadors ought to go on leave at that time. 
The parties are then searching for political weapons and 
any weapon will do. 

Question: Why do American country roads have no 
"sidewalks"? Apparent answer. Because Americans never 
walk. 

Sunday y November 20, 1921. A report on the Far Eastern 
discussion by the Commission yesterday shows that all 
Powers protest their great friendliness to China and under- 
take to do the most beautiful things for her. The Japanese 



448 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

statement is perfectly satisfactory. But handsome is as 
handsome does. A mass of reading. Then to Mrs. Hamil- 
ton Wright's to meet her brother, Stanley Washburn, who 
has done so well for the Times in many parts of the world. 
He and his sister know China and Japan well. He is now 
working on Elihu Root's secretariat. Low and several 
other people were there, but we had a good talk and ex- 
changed ideas. Little difference between Washburn's 
views and mine. We think that Japan will use mellifluous 
language, but will never remove her claws from China and 
that we cannot make her without a very long and costly 
war. So in trying to help China to stand alone, we can 
carry Japan only as far as persuasion can take her, and I 
am strongly against a break with her in any case. Mrs, 
Wright a fervent advocate of China. Dined with Mrs. 
Marshall Field. The house looked well at night and the 
lighting very good. Some thirty-six at dinner, including 
the Beattys, Cavan, the Dutch Minister Van Blokland, the 
Vice-President Coolidge, Bethell, the ladies Vanderbilt, 
Harriman, West, Bliss, and a great many more. The table 
gorgeous with silver, roses, fruits, etc. , and some of the guests 
infested with diamonds. An agreeable hostess who has a 
houseful of beautiful things. A good talk with the Admiral 
over the naval scrapping scheme. It is quite clear to me 
that the ten-year holiday is economically unsound. At the 
end of it we shall have twelve ships building and there will 
be periods of immense activity followed by others of atro- 
phy. The Admiral likes the submarines no more than I do. 
He goes home at the end of the month, leaving Admiral 
Chatfield here. Mrs. West, a Californian widow, and very 
good company, was my dining partner. We leave the table 
here a la frangaise. 

Monday, November 21, 1921. We all assembled at the 
Hall for the discussion on land armaments. Very full house 
and heaps of ladies in the galleries. Hughes made a short 
speech, and then Briand took the floor, speaking from the 
end of the high table on the right of Senator Underwood. 
He broke his speech into three parts and after each part 



BRIAND AND BALFOUR SPEAK 449 

the interpreter translated it with ability. The breaks 
marred the effect. Briand showed us a France all for peace, 
explained how she has reduced and was still further reduc- 
ing her army, and then trotted us over all the old ground 
of German wickedness, fairly and truthfully on the whole, 
but sometimes forcing the note a little, and making too 
much of Ludendorffian extravagances. He asked for no 
guarantee, aware that it would be useless, but pointed to 
France's isolation and hoped that no one would try to bar- 
ter away the French Army when it stood between France 
and threatening Germany. 

Brilliant, of course, rising to heights and flights of elo- 
quence when with his two hands, turned into claws as it 
seemed, he convulsively tore the air on each side of his 
head, frantically and St. Vitusly, as he brought some par- 
ticular Boche iniquity to notice. A speech, it must be said, 
that required a French Chamber for audience. Not one out 
of ten of his audience understood him, and had they done 
so they might not have been in sympathy. Living here 
how can one visualise Paris, the Rhine, the Ruhr, Silesia, 
Berlin.'^ It is all so very, very far away, while every day 
from Germany arrive sarcasms at French expense. The 
applause was good. It was for the visible and audible elo- 
quence, for France; something for the man, not much for 
his case. 

Balfour followed, admirable, measured, dignified, serene, 
full of compliments for the masterly eloquence of the 
French Premier, then branching to the thought of the 
tragedy it would be were France morally isolated. It was, 
he thought, because there had been no moral disarma- 
ment, and this did not permit the changes in land arma- 
ments that were visible here in relation to war at sea. From 
this he turned to recount our losses in France — of which 
Briand had not said one word — a million dead, two mil- 
lion wounded. We deplored the losses, he went on, but 
did not regret them, nor had we changed our opinion that 
the war was just, nor should we hesitate again to repeat 
our action in a similar case. (Rounds of applause from the 



450 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

French benches.) Very pointedly he deplored the spirit of 
domination that had been the curse of Europe, and after 
thanking Briand again for his candid account, finished up 
by wishing him and his country "every prosperity in that 
path of unaggressive prosperity which I hope and believe 
they are now entering." A promise or a warning.'' 

Schanzer followed for Italy, rejoicing over the intention 
expressed by Briand of a further reduction of the French 
Army and showing how Italy's Army was down to 200,000 
men, whereupon Admiral Kato expressed his sympathies 
for France and for the losses of Japan's allies. He said that 
Japan approved of the limitation of land armaments to 
those necessary for national security and the maintenance 
of order, forces which could be determined only by special 
conditions rendering all comparisons difficult. Baron de 
Cartier followed for Belgium, backing France and praying 
for the return of conditions permitting a further reduction 
of land armaments. 

Secretary Hughes closed the discussion. After compli- 
ments he said that "no words ever spoken by France have 
fallen upon deaf ears in the United States." "What was 
essential, he said, was the will to peace. Then he went on 
to say, "in response to a word that has challenged us all, 
there is no moral isolation for the defenders of liberty and 
justice." That was the pith, greatly cheered, and the 
whole matter was then referred back to the Armament 
Committee. The French were made very happy by the 
morning's work, but there was not one word said to en- 
courage them to any dubious adventure. 

In the late afternoon Geddes received the press and 
made some very useful statements. Dined in the evening 
with those dear kind people, the Elliot Goodwins, and 
found the Simondses, Admiral Grayson and his wife — 
he was President Wilson's famous doctor — Butler 
Wright, and a few more. A very pleasant, friendly evening. 

Tuesday y November 22, 1921. I was disgusted this 
morning to read two reports by Stephane Lauzanne and 
Mr. James to the effect that the French claimed equality 



AN EMBASSY RECEPTION 451 

with the Japanese in capital ships, equality with us in 
submarines, and refused to be bound by the naval hoHday. 
The report had evidently originated in some French official 
sources, and I promptly sent off a stiff cable to London 
relating the report and making some severe comment upon 
it, describing it as most untimely. Told every Frenchman 
I met what I thought about it. 

Mr. Ellery Sedgwick arrived from Boston and came to 
see me. A good talk. A capable and well-informed man 
whose Atlantic Monthly is the greatest of the great Amer- 
ican reviews, and is thoroughly impartial and statesman- 
like. Called on Mrs. West and found her charming house 
in the Georgetown part of the country, notable in its 
dignity and simple taste and altogether very attractive. 
She took me on to a tea-fight where we met many people, 
including the French Chief of Staff, General Buat, whom 
I set upon at once. I told him that as England had agreed 
to scrap half her fleet and France had the ambition to 
double hers, I thought that the best way out was for us to 
sell him half our navy. Then we should ease our finances 
and France would more than double her navy all at once. 
He thought this a splendid idea and was all for it. I re- 
proached him for this morning's announcement, which he 
tried to minimise. 

In the evening to a reception at the Embassy. Some 
two thousand people. Their Excellencies and Mr. Balfour 
stood for some four hours receiving the guests as they filed 
in. A great crowd. Met an immense number of people. 
Have arrived at the stage of knowing half Washington by 
sight without being able to put a name to more than a very 
few of them. Most of the delegates, Ambassadors, and 
Ministers, including Van Karnebeek, the Dutch Foreign 
Minister, whom I was glad to meet again after all these 
years. It was very refreshing to see all the British uni- 
forms again. Back late. 

Wednesday, November 23, 1921. The Far East Com- 
mittee is now at work on China's tariffs, and Riddell gave 
the press a very useful lecture on the subject this morning 



452 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

calculated to silence some malevolent criticisms which 
pretended to-day to fasten upon us a double dose of 
original sin in Chinese affairs. Lunched with Mrs. Minot 
and a pleasant party at her house. In the afternoon to the 
Italian Embassy where I had a talk with the Ambassador 
Ricci and with Senator Bergomini, who is a delegate, and 
who had just handed over his famous Corriere della Sera 
to his brother. The Italians insist as much as we do on the 
establishment of a ratio for the Italian and French navies. 
They are exceedingly critical of France, and they justly 
point out that before the war they were allied to Austria 
and now stand alone. They are bent upon a fleet equiv- 
alent to France's, but do not care how low the scale is 
graded down. 

To-day there came out alleged interviews with Briand 
on the naval news of yesterday. It made things no better, 
as it left the capital ships vague, said nothing of the naval 
holiday, and went all out for the submarines. The new 
French plan has put everyone against France, even the 
Senate. I heard to-day that the plan which I attacked 
yesterday emanated from Viviani. Briand leaves to- 
morrow, when Viviani will be in charge. However, if the 
French are so foolish as not to toe the line with other 
Powers, we can simply make a reservation and place them 
in the category with Russia as a State whose actions must 
determine our future naval policy. 

Thursday, November 24, 1921. Briand left to-day for 
New York and France. As a send-off for him there is pub- 
lished the report of a speech by Curzon which will not be 
agreeable to the French. This French mission has been 
muddled. We shall learn some day how it all came about. 
The French have been entirely out of the picture, and in- 
stead of helping matters have rather hampered them. It 
is a great pity, but the Anglo-French animosities in the 
Supreme Council have dogged our footsteps here. Briand 
at his best is a good friend and the sanest of men. I cannot 
imagine how he arrived here with such serious miscon- 
ceptions and with such slight knowledge of the atmosphere. 



A FRENCH CABLE TO LONDON 453 

Thanksgiving Day, very wet. Dined with Mrs. Robert 
Hinckley and a party of about a dozen including Lady 
Annesley; Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Craigie, of our Embassy; 
M. and Mme. Gruitch, the Serbian Minister and his wife; 
M. Corbin, head of the press to the French delegation; 
and several others whose names escape me. A good talk 
with Corbin about the navy affair. He puts it all down to 
Stephane Lauzanne and some French official. When I 
named Viviani, he did not plainly deny the imputation, but 
he says that the ratio will be fixed in due course and that 
France will not object to equality with Italy. Mme. Gruitch 
and Miss Gladys Hinckley good neighbours at dinner. 

Friday, November 25, 1921. A good lot of particularly 
poisonous propaganda garbage in the press here to-day 
from some of our enemies. I wrote a little cable to explain 
Italy's attitude here, highly commending it. Had hardly 
finished when Signor Schanzer, who is living at my hotel, 
asked me to come down, and was very indignant about 
some "false and malicious" report, as he described it, 
which had been published in London concerning a sup- 
posed violent altercation between him and Briand on the 
Armaments Committee. I knew nothing of the affair. He 
asked me to cable to London to deny it on his behalf, 
which I did. Albertini came in and we had a little talk. 
Schanzer said that in the Committee, Balfour had spoken 
to suggest that land armaments should be left open for the 
later action of the Conference, or at least not be closed. 
Schanzer had supported him in a very moderate speech, 
whereupon Briand, instead of answering Balfour, had 
"vivaciously" answered Schanzer, who had, also "with 
vivacity," replied. But there were not any high words or 
insults exchanged, and Briand had even postponed his 
departure for New York so that the two delegations 
might dine together. The Italians rightly consider that 
the tendencious revelation of things taking place, or 
supposed to be taking place, en petit comitS is insupport- 
able, and so I think. But one can apparently never stop it 
when the French are present. 



454 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

Went to see Mrs. Bliss in the afternoon and found a lot 
of people there, including Mrs. Brinton, who is here on a 
visit and returns home soon; Mme. Jusserand, the pleas- 
ant wife of the French Ambassador; Princess Cantacuzene, 
who has worked so hard at relief work in Russia; the 
Polish Minister, and a number of leading Americans. 
The Ambassadress hoped that correspondents would not 
dip their pens in acid. I said that the British here would 
not, unless their navy, which was the heart of England, 
were attacked. Lord Riddell gave a good dinner in the 
evening to one hundred and forty of the correspondents 
of all nations. A well-managed affair. Balfour, Geddes, 
and our host spoke. Three capital speeches, Balfour at his 
very best. 

Difficult to keep fit here. The hot rooms suitable for or- 
chids, not Englishmen. Spender says he feels like a kettle, 
boiling inside and the steam coming out of his mouth. 

Length of life said to be seven years less here than at 
home. Don't wonder. Some people have wood fires, but 
not many. As a rule coldish wind outside and one's con- 
stitution resents the rapid alternations of heat and cold. 

Saturday, November 26, 1921. Went to have a talk with 
Mr. Elihu Root, as wise a head as America contains. 
I told him of the confidence we had in him and could not 
avoid praise of his attitude on the affair of the Panama 
tolls. He said that the opposition to his views on this 
subject made him almost doubt his own sanity, so clear 
seemed the text of our treaty. He thinks on the whole that 
things are going well, but that we had reached the stage 
when a thousand difficulties of detail presented them- 
selves and these required time to work through. We dis- 
cussed Curzon's speech. The best opinion here regrets it. 
It cuts across Balfour's skilful handling of the French case 
here. It is thought that if the French were in a panic, 
Curzon's manner was not the best for talking to people 
in this state. Marianne is a woman, said I; people who 
take her for a man are not fit to be trusted with courting 
her. Root thinks that his four points on the China ques- 



SENATOR ROOT 455 

tion form a background to which all concrete questions 
can be referred. He had studied all the treaties of all the 
Powers for twenty-five years back, and said that Japan 
was obliged to accept the points or she would have been 
referred back to her own treaties. He thought that Japan 
would be stiffest on the naval ratio, and would probably 
settle the Shantung question out of court. Root thought 
Japan in the wrong about Shantung, but the Powers who 
had signed the_,Versailles Treaty would have a diflBculty 
in opposing her. He considered that Japan intended to 
become a very great nation, but might not consider the 
present moment favourable for any fresh expansion. He 
felt that America was not well versed in economic and 
financial questions affecting Europe. He had studied 
them as much as anybody and confessed his own inability 
to comprehend them all. America was more averse to the 
League of Nations Convention than ever. The Shantung 
case was typical of the kind of agreement which the Con- 
vention would have compelled America to support. He 
thought that the political situation dominated the eco- 
nomic in Europe. No confidence could exist while the Bol- 
shevist menace hung over Europe. I thought that it had 
much diminished, and Said that, placing Russia aside, I 
ventured with diffidence to believe that economics led 
politics. 

We had a talk of my favourite panacea — compulsory 
arbitration. I found Root entirely shared my opinion. He 
had helped in creating a list upon which those States 
agreeing to compulsory arbitration could inscribe their 
names at The Hague. About a dozen minor States had 
done so. I told him that if the United States put forward 
a resolution in favour of it at the end of the Conference, 
it would be a dramatic curtain for the last act of the play 
here and would sweep the world, so great was the moral 
authority of America now. He approved that I should 
speak to Hughes about it. We walked over to the Con- 
ference building after talking. Root is a wise, experienced 
statesman, invaluable here, but I think he feels that a 



456 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

younger man should take up the fiery cross for the crusade 
which I alluded to. 

Attended Mr. Wile's luncheon party — Philadelphia 
Ledger — to the foreign journalists at the Racquet Club. 
Mr. Hughes came and made a good speech. He said that 
the Conference itself was quite a tame affair, but when 
he read his cuttings at night he was astonished at all that 
was being read into it and could scarcely sleep. But he 
thought that we were treating him very fairly and de- 
scribed the Conference as a great education to America. 
Hughes seems to me to be blossoming out under the rays 
of the sun of success and to be growing more human and 
conciliatory. I am more and more impressed with his 
sincerity and honesty. But one must admit that he has 
met such good-will on all sides that a high test of his 
diplomatic ability has not yet presented itself. Mr. 
Curtis, the proprietor of the Ledger, was present. 

Our chief news this morning is that President Harding 
announced last night that he hopes to see "an Association 
of Nations" arise from the present Conference, and out- 
lined a policy of a conference once a year to consider what- 
ever may menace good understanding, a policy which had 
been informally suggested to some of the foreign delegates, 
whose approval has been obtained. In land armaments 
he said that it was hoped to translate the sentiment of the 
Conference into a joint declaration of general policy. He 
added that the Americans held to the 5-5-3 ratio and did 
not admit a warrant for any change in spite of Japan's 
objections. China's plea for amelioration of the extra- 
territorial rights of foreigners had been approved in prin- 
ciple, and modifications with a view to final abolition will 
be worked out by an international commission of jurists. 

All good work and very encouraging. Also quite in 
accord with the President's speech of July 22, 1920. A 
statement from the Chinese delegation that the likin duty 
will be abolished if tariff autonomy be granted creates a 
very good impression. Attended the Chinese reception and 
remained for seven minutes. It was not exciting. 



MR. AND MRS. ADOLPH MILLER 457 

Sunday, November 27, 1921 . Signer Schanzer spoke to me 
last night again about the unfortunate telegram published 
in London about the quite untrue row between him and 
Briand. He said that the report had created terrible ex- 
citement in Italy, that the country was ringing with it, 
that French consulates were being attacked, that there 
were interpellations in the Parliament, and in fact that 
Hades had broken loose and European complications 
might result. His Excellency was in a great state of mind 
about it all. I had cabled for information to London, but 
had had no reply. So I cabled again. 

Got through the terrifying Sunday papers. After con- 
sulting Mark Sullivan, I have made a list of ten American 
papers ^ which one should read daily in order to gauge 
American feeling from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The 
mere idea of taking on such a job impels one to fly from 
America. Went off to lunch with Mrs. West at her pretty 
house, where I found Sir Arthur Willert, Mr. Tennant 
from the Embassy, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, and two other 
ladies. Some amusing talk. The hostess took me on to 
introduce me to Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Miller. He is on the 
Federal Reserve Board, and I wished to ascertain his views 
on the plan for reforming exchanges and currencies which 
my New York banking friend. Otto Kahn, and I had dis- 
cussed. Miller thinks that the object is the right one and 
he does not oppose the use of American gold for the pur- 
pose. He prefers to "sanify," as I call it, the currency of 
one State at a time, withdrawing the debased issue and re- 
placing it by a new on a gold basis. He would like a pretty 
large committee to begin with, and it would later resolve 
itself into a "Big Four" who would conduct the business. 
He admits the need for Government authority and back- 
ing, and would bring in the chief national banks of issue 
in the great countries. But he would make it a banking 

1 The New York Times; New York World; Washington Post; Portland Ore- 
gonian; Chicago Tribune; Louisville Courier-Journal for Southern views; In- 
dianapolis News; Boston Transcript; and the Springfield (Massachusetts) Repub- 
lican which is the Manchester Guardian of America. And one should add a 
Hearst paper. A mass of folk see and read nothing else. 



458 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

transaction and not a governmental affair, and he would 
insist on a certain control and the balancing of the expen- 
diture of all States with their revenue. My only wonder 
now is why on earth people do not get ahead with the 
scheme. It sounds a preposterous thing to say that we are 
waiting on America who is financially uneducated, but 
after Root's admission I must give the only explanation 
that I can think of. 

The Millers are very nice people and have an attractive 
house. Mme. Rose came in with Wickham Steed and I 
made her acquaintance for the first time. Went on to the 
Simondses and found him inclined to belittle the Presi- 
dent's announcement, suggesting that it was a sort of 
afterthought introduced at the fag-end of his talk, and that 
Hughes was at the same moment telling the French corre- 
spondents that it was better not to announce plans for the 
future prematurely. 

In the evening received a cable from London, explain- 
ing the origin of the dangerously false news from Washing- 
ton. It came from one of our French friends here and he is 
very contrite and upset about it. I showed Signor Schan- 
zer and Senator Albertini the cable during dinner. I had 
asked for a reply which I could show to him. We can only 
surmise the name of the Frenchman's informant, but it 
was a dirty piece of work on the part of this informant, who- 
ever he was. Discussed with the Italian delegates the 
position of the League of Nations in relation to Harding's 
association, Albertini thought that no Power could refuse 
an invitation to join Harding's next conference, and 
Schanzer, who is on the League Council, thought that the 
two bodies might tend to coalesce. If America will not 
join the League, the League may join America. It is 
Mahomet and the mountain. In any case I see no reason 
why the two bodies cannot usefully co-operate. 

It seems that Viviani called journalists from their little 
beds last night to announce to them his acceptance of 
Harding's association. Doubt whether he was not a trifle 
premature for an official. We do not really know very 



DENIAL OF THE FRENCH CABLE 459 

much about the new association yet. However, it is all to 
the good. 

Monday, November 28, 1921. Vexed this morning to see 
that the Italian papers are attributing that d d mes- 
sage to me, so, as I had an appointment with the real cul- 
prit at my hotel, I asked Bullen to go down to the press 
conference and make a denial at my request, which he did. 
The culprit arrived, very sad and penitent, admitting that 
he had written with some legerete and that he had made an 
error of judgement. He said that X, of the French delega- 
tion, had more than once said the things that were in the 
cable published in London, and so when another French- 
man, who had been present on the now famous occasion, 
told my friend the story again, he sent it off. It has cer- 
tainly played the very deuce in Italy. I asked him if he 
cared to give me the name of his informant. He said that 
he could not do this and I did not press it. But I asked 
whether M. Corbin was the guilty party, and my friend 
obliquely denied it by saying that Corbin had not been 
present at the Committee. 

Mrs. West and another lady, with Mr. Yencken, lunched 
with me at the Shoreham. Went on to the Embassy for 
a talk with our commercial attaches and the Ambassador. 
Explained to the latter the facts about the cable from the 
Frenchman to London. The subject was brought up to- 
day in Committee and a very complete denial was given 
of the whole story. But I doubt that it will ever quite 
catch up the lie, which has had three days' start. 

Wish that I could jot down the abominable mischief 
that has been practised against us here on two occasions 
this year, and once quite recently, by a supposed ally. It 
would make England red-hot with anger. But this Con- 
ference is too beneficent an undertaking to permit one to 
create trouble, even when the most perfidious treachery is 
practised against us. Our false friend will find that these 
things have to be paid for. That is all I shall say about it. 
Hughes seems to have been very firm about the proposals 
and has not allowed himself to be caught in the net. 



460 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

Things are going exceedingly well. It is considered 
quite probable, one of our delegates tells me, that we may 
settle the battleship ratio by midnight. The French have 
come to ask that they may rank as 2 in our 5-5-3 scale, 
but we have been stiff about it. We can be nothing less 
now that we have the secret of their plans. China gets on 
well, and we shall keep foreign control of maritime cus- 
toms, railroads, posts, and banks for the time or the whole 
system will collapse. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty will 
drop to the ground when we get the Far Eastern arrange- 
ment settled, and this, I am told, may be during the 
current week too. Am not sure about Shantung yet, but 
on the whole, unless our delegation are unduly sanguine, 
we should really make the main settlements within a 
fortnight, much of them this week, though our officials 
leap ahead of outside opinion and may make their wish 
the father of their thought. 

In the evening to the Dutch reception and had a good 
talk with Van Karnebeek. I told him that I thought 
Hughes might like to hold the next Conference at The 
Hague. Would it be agreeable and would it be costly in 
The Netherlands? He said that the Dutch Government 
would like it very much, but that it should take place in 
the summer when the Scheveningen hotels were open, as 
otherwise the delegations would not easily be lodged. It 
would not cost Holland much and besides the country was 
well-off. There was the Peace Palace and the Binnenhof, 
besides our old House in the Wood, and there was ample 
space. He was quite of my opinion that exchanges and 
currencies and then armaments were the two great^ress- 
ing questions. 

I told him of my researches; liere about the gold basis 
business. He heartily concurred in the ideas which Kahn, 
Miller, and I shared, and said that the Dutch were think- 
ing furiously on this subject and would fall into line with 
the plans which I outlined. He was all for the great banks 
of issue coming in and for Miller's other suggestions. He 
agreed with me against Root that economies led politics 



JONKHEER VAN KARNEBEEK 461 

and thought economics by far the most pressing matter. 
France would not like a control, however. Then she can 
stand out, I said. K., like Otto Kahn, was for sanifying 
all the distressed countries at once, and was also for strictly 
limiting the next Conference to the question of economics 
and armaments. He was in hopes that co-operation with 
Geneva could be arranged. It would not do to overburden 
the agenda of the next Conference. This had been the 
great fault at Geneva. Van K. told me that the banker Ter 
Meulen was not wedded to his own scheme so much as 
some of our enthusiasts are. It was just an idea, not a 
real cure. He is sending me a paper by Vissering, Presi- 
dent of the Netherlands Bank, in the morning. I feel sure 
that we are on the right track. 

Tuesday, November 29, 1921. Attended Riddell's confer- 
ence in the morning, when I rose and said that Bullen had 
explained the case of the cable yesterday, but that I was 
quite ready to answer any question about it that anyone 
wished to ask. No one spoke except one American, who 
said that no one supposed that I had had anything to 
do with it. So the subject dropped. The name of the poor 
culprit has been given in a New York Italian paper. 
Went to lunch with Lord Cavan, and Bartholomew and 
Higgins of his staff, at 1525 Sixteenth Street, a nice httle 
place. There was not much to be said about land arma- 
ments, as practically nothing will be done here on this 
occasion about it except to pass some resolution at the end 
to keep the affair to the front. So we talked the war, es- 
pecially in Italy, and our own army affairs and similar 
subjects; also tennis and football. 

Bullen at the same hour attended the President's levee 
and reported that Harding had somewhat minimised the 
importance of his statement about an Association of 
Nations, and had particularly said that it would not be a 
rival to the League of Nations. But that was quite clear 
before. I expect that Simonds was right about the previ- 
ous talk, and also that Hughes had talked to the Presi- 
dent after it, and had suggested a certain grading down of 



462 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

the idea till things were more nearly ready for action to be 
taken. 

Wednesday, November 30, 1921. The Japanese are await- 
ing instructions from Tokio about the battleship ratio. A 
fuss made about it in some papers. But as it takes four 
days to get a reply to a cable, the Japs have to hasten 
slowly. There is no substantial change. At least not yet. 

I saw Mr. Balfour in the afternoon at his little flat and 
had a good talk with him over current events here and the 
future outlook. He hopes to get away by the end of the 
month. 

^December 1, 1921. On the whole a bad day's news. The 
Japs are adamant about the battleship ratio and the Amer- 
icans as firm in support of their plan. The Chinese wished 
to bring Shantung before the full Conference where we, 
Italy, Belgium, and France, being signatories of the Ver- 
sailles Treaty, should have been bound to support Japan. 
But the two parties were persuaded to accept the good 
oflBces of England and America and we may be able to 
patch up some settlement. Sir John Jordan and Mr. Lamp- 
son are to act for us. The Japs will not withdraw their troops 
from the South Manchurian railway, and will withdraw 
them from other places only when an efficient Chinese 
police is organised. The Japanese resistance to the ratio 
blocks all the other naval discussions, since all hangs on the 
battleship question. 

Friday, December 2, 1921. No change. The Japs silent. 
Lunched with Maurice Low at the Shoreham, who had 
invited Mrs. Rea of Pittsburgh; Mrs. Frank West; Mrs. 
Keep, a charming lady, and another, besides H. G. Wells, 
Ian Hay, and myself. Waited for Wells. Then 'phoned 
and found that he was still in his black velvet smoking- 
jacket and that his watch had stopped. What else could 
one expect of a genius.'* I was only surprised that the watch 
had not galloped on twenty centuries to keep pace with 
its post-historic master. However, he came at last, and 
we had a most agreeable party. 

In the afternoon the foreign press was received by the 



A PRESIDENTIAL TEA-PARTY 463 

President at the White House at 5 p.m. We were ushered 
into a large room, or at least found our way there, as there 
was no "aide" to guide us, and waited a quarter of an hour 
while nothing happened. X very cross because not the 
sl'ghtest notice had been taken by the President or Hughes 
of some eight or nine Brit'sh journalists here who think 
themselves capable of moving British opinion one way or 
the other. Even now we were all herded together with all 
the little reporters from the back-veldt of China and Japan. 
I said that it only made me laugh. I was enormously 
amused that the State chiefs could not distinguish, and I 
had taken no steps to secure preferential treatment. It 
was much more fun to see how the democratic machine 
worked of its own accord. It afforded me entertainment to 
discover that the American Court was the most exclusive 
in the world and was so entirely inaccessible in reality, 
though so democratic in seeming. The only trouble was 
that none of us would come again, said X. 

Then at last we were ushered into the Presence. Just 
what Buckingham Palace must be like at a tea-fight for 
indigent mothers. Inside the door we found some sort of 
Court dignitary who announced our names, and next to 
him came the President, a dignified representative Ameri- 
can with an attractive presence and a face that pleased. 
He had time only to say that he "had read a powerful 
amount of my writings and was glad to meet me face to 
face," when I found myself presented to his wife, a very 
agreeable lady, and passed on to a tea-room and out again 
without further delay. 

W^ent to see the Ambassador and had a good talk. This 
evening there is a talk going on between Hughes, Balfour, 
and Kato, and I have an idea that some interesting com- 
munication may go to Tokio. I had cabled this week to 
the D. T. suggesting that the best help that the Cabinet 
could render us here was to concert with Tokio and inform 
the State Department that, if we agreed here about the 
Far East, we and Japan would be ready to substitute this 
agreement for the Anglo- Japan Treaty. It looks as though 



464 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

some such course were being followed, and H.E. spoke of 
a four-Power agreement to include the United States and 
France. That would do well, but I thought that the other 
States represented here should join in too. 

Dined at the Frank Simondses and met a number of very 
pleasant people including the Churchills. Told Simonds 
that he now had his revenge for the inaccessibility of our 
leading men of which he had complained so bitterly to me 
in London during the war. Here our people were saying 
the same thing. It was worse than Lhassa. It seemed to me 
that nothing in continental Europe compared with the 
exclusiveness of a sealed-pattern democracy of the eight- 
eenth-century type. Kings, Presidents, Chancellors, and 
Foreign Ministers elsewhere I had found to be paragons 
of accessibility. It amused me hugely. The result was, as 
in his case in London, that only third-rate men would take 
the trouble to come on the next occasion were it not for 
the charms of the "cave-dwellers," as the old families of 
Washington are called. 

Saturday, December 3, 1921. Tremendous excitement 
about the late talk of the trio yesterday which began at 5.30 
P.M. and lasted two hours. Official optimism at the zenith. 
So everybody thinks that all is over but the shouting and 
everything arranged. A very little thought should show 
that we still have a heavy amount of work to do before we 
get through the agenda. Lunched with Mr. Yokota, who 
addressed his guests in a long speech in Japanese which 
was subsequently translated. Full of charming sentiments 
about America, but he did not mention us. In the evening 
to Rauscher's, where the Italian Ambassador, supported 
by his staff and by Schanzer with his delegation, enter- 
tained the press. About one hundred and fifty people, I 
suppose. Wells and most of our people there, I think, but 
I missed those cool heads. Spender and Nevinson. I was 
next to the Ambassador and had a good talk with him on 
many interesting subjects. He is on the committee dealing 
with the extra-territorial rights, etc., of foreigners in China 
and told me most of the difficulties which they met with. 



AN ITALIAN DINNER-PARTY 465 

He also told me much of interest about the Roman Cath- 
ohes. There are five million Italians here, but the Irish 
make a corner in the priesthood, which is all in their hands. 
He made a good and witty speech in Italian, at the end of 
which he was much applauded. Except about the sub- 
marines, I have not been able to discover a shadow of dif- 
ference between our policy and that of America or Italy 
since we have been here. The Italians have got a good 
team. Bergomini a very capable man and a good sec- 
ond for Schanzer, who has been very open and straight- 
forward. 

Sunday, December 4, 1921. A heavy fall of snow. By 
noon all the town was white. My time has come for re- 
turning, so now I must pay some farewell visits, be off to 
New York, address the Contemporary Club on Thurs- 
day, at the Clarks' house after dining with the Morrises, 
lunch with Mr. Paul D. Cravath and some kindred spirits 
Friday, dine with Otto Kahn, and hear Chaliapine at the 
opera, bid adieu to Ferris Greenslet, and embark on the 
Olympic Saturday. 

Too early to summarise'my impressions, for I have been 
amassing them in stacks and they are not yet sorted out in 
my mind. Sorry to leave before the final act is over, but 
may not learn much more by staying on. I have great hope 
that the Conference will close with agreement and be a 
big success, which will give the President and Hughes the 
requisite authority for going ahead. I hope that in 1922 
they will deal with economics first and then with land 
armaments. That will be quite enough, in all conscience. 
Then I would like them in 1923 to deal with Russia, all 
the States combining to restore her to order, and directing 
their energies by some unified political control of about 
seven men, or fewer if possible, with Hughes for Chairman. 
If a good start can be made, then give up 1924 to the cause 
of obligatory arbitration. At the end of that year we shall 
be in the throes of another Presidential election and no one 
can see beyond it. But it may mean the reconstruction 
of Europe within a single Presidential term. And it is 



466 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

always better to throw for the golden coat even if one 
gets only the golden sleeve. 

The real hope of future success lies in the combination of 
the characters of the two ruling men here, with the porten- 
tous wealth and power of the United States whose word no 
Power can resist, assuming it continues to ring as true as it 
does here now. We Europeans are all too much involved 
and tied up in our treaties, interests, and bickerings in 
Europe for any European statesman to take the lead in 
this affair. America stands apart, unseeking, unselfish, 
righteous, well-intentioned, Olympian in her detachment, 
yet with means of constraint at need, both moral and ma- 
terial. I see no power but America's to redeem Europe and 
Asia from all the terrible troubles which my inquiries this 
year have made too poignantly manifest to me. Respon- 
sibility goes with power and has ever so gone since the 
dawn of history. 

This Conference has been a great education to us all and 
not least to the Americans. The newspapers and maga- 
zines teem with wonderfully good accounts of all phases of 
the programme, written by the first experts in all branches 
and of all nations. From indifference the public have passed 
to interest and then to absorption. The knowledge gained 
by the American press men of their foreign colleagues has 
been useful to them, and vice versa. There has been a very 
good feeling. The criticisms of the foreigner have been 
courteous. 

The Americans are very national in their sentiments and 
seem to have no taste at all for internationalism as a form 
of government. In fact they resent it strongly. They work 
for themselves first and for America next and all the rest of 
the time. I think that rehgion plays a much larger part in 
public sentiment here than in any other Christian State. 
I notice also that Labour is sending out seven thousand 
speakers to advance the cause of general disarmament. 
Propaganda here is a fine art in politics as in trade. 

The way Americans criticise and abuse their political 
system is disconcerting. They describe it as the lowest and 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 467 

meanest thing on earth, have scarcely a good word to say 
for any politician, and even rate the Senate low since the 
election for that body passed from the State Legislatures 
to the general body of voters. For not more than a small 
minority of Senators has anybody a good word to say, but 
one must remember that many good men called Senators 
are no longer in the Senate. Governors are in the same 
position, and since Hughes was Governor of New York he 
has been called Governor Hughes by most people. It is like 
the French Presidents — Prime Ministers — who are al- 
ways called M. le President for the rest of their lives. 

I have not been able to get an answer to my question — 
when is a treaty not a treaty? The treaty-making power is 
shared by the President and the Senate as everybody 
knows, and each is jealous of the other's share. But as to 
precisely where an understanding or a note merges into an 
agreement and the latter into a Treaty with a big T requir- 
ing Senatorial approval, no one has been able to give me a 
clear explanation. I do not believe that they know them- 
selves, but in the circumstances, and in view of what hap- 
pened to the League Convention, the Versailles Treaty, 
and the Anglo-American guarantee to France, I would not 
give much for an agreement not countersigned by the 
Senate. He who lets us down once, shame on him. He who 
lets us down a second time, shame on us. The American 
Constitution is America's affair. Our affair is merely to 
make sure that an agreement is valid when it is made, and 
is so held by the American Legislature. We should be in a 
nice mess if we scrapped our ships and then found that the 
Senate did not ratify the arrangement. It would be like 
the Army and their queues! 

I prefer Washington to any European capital for a Con- 
ference like the present. The atmosphere is much more 
serene. There are not all the thousands of distractions and 
vexations of Paris or London. Everyone can think and 
work, and meetings are easy owing to short distances. It 
is a pity that the hotels are so bad and so wickedly expen- 
sive, but otherwise life is pleasant. The arrangements for 



468 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

the Conference have all been well made. The hostesses of 
Washington have overwhelmed us with their kindness and 
hospitality. Nothing could exceed the natural grace of the 
womenfolk and the sterling qualities of their men. Scarcely 
any ostentation or parade. Simple homely houses and 
many very pleasant ones. One has to refuse abundant 
invitations, especially in the evenings, or scrap one's work, 
for a Conference like this occupies nearly all one's time. 
May Heaven and the hostesses forgive us for all the cards 
we ought to have left and have not left! 

I dare say that we have not done ourselves justice by 
the publication in the American press of our cables ad- 
dressed to London. It is not the same thing to write for 
American readers and English readers. To the latter one 
tries to convey the American view, which the American 
does not want to hear. Also the American press cannot 
make good English out of abbreviated cable messages, and 
the misprints in the press here are terrible. We are occa- 
sionally made to say awful things and sometimes the re- 
verse of what we have said. Another time we must or- 
ganise this matter and place it on a better footing. The 
American magazines and American books by the good 
publishers are as carefully printed and on as good paper 
and in as good type as the newspapers are the reverse. It 
is a real corvee to read an American paper. The type is so 
small and vile as to be almost unreadable, and one is con- 
stantly arrested by being referred on to some other page 
and some other column. One rarely sees an English paper 
here. I have not read one nor even seen one since I came. 
We get very poor surveys of English opinion here, except 
from two or three men, and Americans make the same 
complaint of American news published in London. There 
is a large field of usefulness open here if the proprietors 
would set to work upon it. 

I hope and believe that one of the chief results of the 
month's work has been to establish the Anglo-American 
accord on a firm basis. It has been well and truly laid by 
Mr- Balfour's wholly admirable and natural gifts, which 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 469 

have never been displayed to greater advantage, while he 
gives all the credit to Geddes, Lee, Borden, Pearce, and all 
the younger men who have worked for him. Geddes has 
also been a tower of strength. If it be true, as an American 
has told me, that the United States wished at this Confer- 
ence to discover where they stood and who were their 
friends, they should know now. Similarly we have found 
the Americans to be absolutely sincere and entirely devoid 
of any intention of stealing a march upon us. We hope that 
they trust us. We are sure that we trust them. A whole 
mountain of prejudice seems to have been removed from 
between us during these eventful days, and on our side 
we must allow the honours to Balfour and Ambassador 
Geddes. Almost I believe that Americans will some day 
realise our secret pride in them. And that blessed Eng- 
lish language! How can any people who use it be less 
than brothers? 

Only one doubt oppresses, and that is the volatile and 
unstable character of public opinion here. It has not been 
precipitated into the British form of solidity by centuries 
of trials and great events. It is more accustomed to lead 
its leaders than to be led by them. It knows infinitely 
less of the world than ours does. The Anglo-Saxon is 
mixed here with some elements which represent incalcu- 
lable forces of uncertain properties. So we feel, for all 
our faith and hope, that explosions are not impossible 
in the chemical constituents of public opinion. Men may 
then become anything and the man nothing. Statesmen 
may be swept away in some convulsion when it comes, 
and all the bases of their policy may be shattered. There 
is an unknown quantity. That is the danger. 



THE END 



INDEX 



Abd-el-Kadr. 261. 

Achtardjieff, M., 355. 

Adams, Mr. Alexander, 339, 351, 388, 
389. 

Addison, Mr. Joseph, 257, 263, 266. 

Albertini, Signor, 453, 458, 464. 

Alexander, H. M. the King of the Hel- 
lenes, 38. 

Alexander, Russian Tsar-Liberator, 
364. 

Alexandropoulos, M., 141. 

Alington, Lady, 177. 

Allen, General, U.S.A., 230-33. 

Andrassy, Count Julius, 125, 162, 163. 

Andrew, Prince, of Greece, 27, 32, 51, 
52. 

Andrew, Princess, 27, 32, 33, 60. 

Annesley, Lady, 425, 453. 

Anschut, Joseph, 157. 

Apponyi, Count Albert, 164, 166, 162, 
163, 167, 168. 

Archimandrite of Rhodes, the, 38. 

Ashton, Sir George, 87. 

Atchkoff, M., 363, 366, 387. 

Athelstan- Johnson, Mr., 164, 155, 157, 
164. 

Avarescu, General, 301, 311, 315-18. 

Aveling, Mr., 108, 110, 115, 126, 127. 

Badoglio, General, 4, 5, 334. 
Baird, Colonel, 365-67, 374. 
Baldwin, Colonel, 178, 179. 
Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur James, 2, 431, 

436-40, 442, 449, 451, 453, 454, 462, 

463, 468, 469. 
Banffy, Count, 156, 165-67, 291. 
Banffy, Baroness, 288, 300, 303. 
Barber, Mr., 155, 156. 
Barrere, M., 11-13, 55. 
Bartholomew, General, 461. 
Barthou, M. Louis, 77, 82, 192, 194, 

239, 248, 251. 
Beasley, Major, 88, 89. 
Beatty, Admiral Lord, 415, 430, 445, 

448. 
Beatty, Lady, 437, 
Beaumont, M., 275. 
Beck, Baron, 150, 151. 
Beith, Ian Hay, 462. 
Bela Kun, 157, 163-66, 341. 
Bellini, General, 155. 
Benckendorff, Count, 17. 
Benes, M., 57-69, ^6, 109, 110, 112-15, 



118, 128-30, 134, 143, 144, 165, 167. 

291, 299, 302, 327, 
Bentinck, Mr. Charles, 34, 43. 
Berchtold, Count, 150. 
Bergomini, Signor, 6, 7, 452, 465. 
Beringer, Mr. Guy, 24. 
Berthelot, M. Philippe, 66, 82, 176, 

284. 
Bertie, Viscount, of Thame, 155. 
Bethell, General, 423. 
Bethlen, Count Stefan, 156, 162, 163, 

319. 
Bibesco, Princess, 315. 
Bignon, M., 183. 
Bismarck, Prince, 337. 
Bland, Mr. J. O. P., 422. 
Bliss, Mrs., 423, 424, 454. 
Bliicher, Prince and Princess, 102, 103. 
Boisseau, Captain, 248. 
Bonsai, Mr. Stephen, 422. 
Borah, Hon. W. E., 410. 
Borden. Sir Robert, 428, 469. 
Bori, Mile. Lucrezia, 402, 403. 
Boris, King of Bulgaria, 298 n., 313, 

343, 357, 361, 362, 367-72, 380, 384 

392. 
Boucher, Francois, 183. 
Bourdillon, Mr. F., 91, 95, 97, 101. 
Boyle, Sir Edward, 18, 21, 24, 31, 43, 

44, 47, 48. 
Bradbury, Sir John, 264. 
Bratiano, M., 315, 316. 
Brazziani, M., 275. 
Brediceanu, M. Caius, 327. 
Breski, M., 5. 
Briand, M. Aristide, 29, 56, 67, 65-67, 

70, 193-95, 199, 205, 210, 212, 234, 

235, 283, 392, 433, 437-39, 448-50, 

452, 453, 457. 
Bridge, Major, 423. 
Brinton, Mrs., 454. 
Brons-Boroevitch, M., 353, 359. 
Brown, Colonel, 87. 
Brown, Commander, 423, 428, 442, 

445. 
Broz, M. Jean, 109. 
Bryan, Hon. William J., 429. 
Buat, General, 77, 78, 81, 83, 239, 427, 

451. 
Bubola, M., 127. 
Buchanan, Rt. Hon. Sir George W., 1, 

3, 4, 13, 17, 54, 58-60. 
Buchanan, Lady Georgina, 64. 



472 



INDEX 



Buchanan, Miss M., 59. 

Buckley, Mr. M., 422. 

Bullen, Mr. Percy, 404, 405, 407, 428, 

443, 459. 461. 
Bullock. Mr. W. F.. 422. 
Bullock-Webster, Revd. Mr., 243-45. 
Bunbury. Mr., 258. 
Burke. James. R. E.. 354. 
Burnham, Lord, 38, 63, 73, 76, 183, 235, 

272. 

Cahen d' An vers, Count and Countess. 

75. 192. 
Calogheropoulos, M., 29, 33, 58, 61. 
Cantacuzene. Princess. 454. 
Caramelos, M.. 17. 55. 
Carruthers, Miss (Mrs. Margaret C. 

Deyo). 403. 
Cartier. Baron de. 450. 
Carty. Col. John J.. 413. 
Caruso. Signor Enrico, 402. 
Cavan, General the Earl of, 430, 461. 
Cerisey, M.. 388. 
Cerny, M., 127. 

Chaliapine, M.. 396, 397, 402-04. 465. 
ChalUs, Mr., 178. 
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Austen, 142, 

196. 
Chapel. Lieutenant. 200. 
Chaplin. Charlie. 416. 
Chatfield. Admiral. 448. 
Cheetham. Sir Milne, 61, 70, 178. 
Chichester. Mr.. 126. 128. 
Chilton, Mr.. 414. 428. 
Chrenichavo. Secretary-General, 301. 
Christopher. H. R. H. Prince of Greece, 

19. 20. 22, 27. 29, 33, 37, 39. 
Christopher, Princess. 20-22. 27, 29. 

30. 32, 33, 37. 39. 43. 47, 50. 75. 142. 
Churchill, General, U.S.A., 17, 172. 
Churchill. Rt. Hon. Winston, 275. 276. 
Clarke. Major R. W.. R.E., 98-101. 
Clary, Comte. 81. 82. 

Claudon, General, 216. 

Clemenceau, M. Georges, 13, 59, 186- 

89, 389. 
Clerk, Sir George, 108, 115, 119, 123. 

125-27. 131, 167. 
Clerk. Lady, 108, 115, 123-25, 126. 

131. 
Coates. Mr., 353. 354. 
Collins. Capt. J. W.. 362, 363, 372. 
Colloredo, Prince, 127. 
Colnaghi. Martin. 186. 
Colvin. Mr., 380. 381, 387. 
Conrad. Mr. Joseph, 402. 
Constantine, H. M. the King of the 

Hellenes, 9, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 29, 30, 

31. 38. 39, 49. 50, 63, 141. 
Corbin, M., 453, 459. 



Courget, M., 125. 

Courtoklieff, Mar6chal de la Cour, 371, 

Craigie. Mr. R. L., 414, 428, 453. 

Cravath. Mr. Paul D., 465. 

Crawford. Mr. W. A., 422. 

Crow Indian Chief. 430. 

Crowe. Sir Eyre. 152. 

Crown Princess of Germany, The, 103. 

Cunard. Mr. Edward, 55. 

Cunninghame, Sir Thomas, 132, 133, 

135. 
Curtis. Mr. Cyrus H. K., 456. 
Curzon of Kedleston, Earl, 61, 146, 152, 

392, 427, 452, 454. 
Czabo, Mr., 162, 163. 
Czemin, Count Ottokar, 289. 

D'Abernon. Lord, 191, 192, 196, 256-59, 

263, 268. 
D 'Abernon, Lady. 258, 259. 267, 279. 
Daisy, Princess, of Pless, 102. 
Danieff, M., 357. 
Dard, M.. 8. 
Dato, M., 75. 
Davidson. Mr., 157. 
De Barczy, Mr.. 162, 163. 
De BUly, M. Robert, 27, 48, 50. 
De Charry. Commandant, 207, 238. 
Dechtold, Herr. 26. 
De Fourtou. General. 364. 365, 372-75, 

377, 388. 392. 
De Fretteville. Count. 75. 84. 
Degoutte, General. 194. 199-205. 207, 

211-16, 221. 233, 235, 239. 248-52. 
De Jouvenel, M. Henry, 215. 
De la Riviere. Lieutenant. 223. 
De Launay. Provost. 205. 
Delbruck. Prof. Hans. 260-63, 275. 
Delmar, Mr.. 371. 384. 
De Marinis, General. 92. 
Demburg, Herr, 291. 292. 
Derussi, M.. 340. 343. 
Detroyat, Lieut. Col., 2, 7. 
Devereux, Mrs. (Mrs. Peraber), 300. 
Deyo, Mrs. Margaret C, 403. 
Dicker. Mr.. 157. 
Dickinson, Sir Willoughby, 306, 319, 

320. 
Djevad Abbas (Hassan), 312, 341, 358, 

360. 363, 366, 387. 
Dmitroff, M., 376, 377, 402. 
Dmowski. M. Roman, 338. 
Dolbeare. Mr., 279, 280. 
Domaille. Capt. Thomas, 159. 
Doubleday, Mrs. Felix. 178. 
Dousmanis, General, 43. 
Drake, Mr. Millington, 297-301, 315, 

325, 335, 336, 348, 390. 
Duncan, General, 17. 
Dundas, Colonel, 331, 333, 334. 



INDEX 



473 



Durham, Lady Agnea, 72, 

Earle, Sir Lionel, 364, 391. 
Ebert, President, 207. 
Edwards, Mr., 258. 
Englis, M., 117. 
Enslen, Mr., 157, 164, 165. 
Entcheff, M., 341. 
Erdody, Herr, 139. 
Eyres, Consul-General, 54. 

Fafe, Dr., 124. 

Falcoyanu, Mme., 335. 

Ferand, General, 195. 

Ferdinand, Ex-Tsar of Bulgaria, 290, 

298, 306, 313, 343, 356, 357, 360 

367, 370-72, 380. 
Ferry, M. Jules, 82. 
Field, Mrs. Marshall, 436, 437, 448. 
Filaleki, M., 310, 311. 
Filimon, Colonel, 364, 376-78. 
Finlayson, Mr. H. C. E., 264-66, 268, 

275. 276. 
Florange, Captain, 207-09. 
Foch, Marshal, 5, 13, 87, 188, 204, 205, 

216, 405, 417. 
Fouche, Mr. and Mrs. SprouU, 326, 

331. 
Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, 157. 
Frick, Dr., 403. 
Fuad, M., 366. 
Fuller, Colonel, 87. 

Gallenga, M., 59. 

Garoflid, M., 331-33. 

Gasparri, Cardinal, 114. 

Gaucher, General, 87, 92. 

Gayda, M., 5, 8, 9. 

Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir Auckland, 81, 
414, 415, 422, 428, 432, 434, 442, 450, 
451, 454, 459, 463, 464, 469. 

George, Prince, of Greece, 38, 65, 66. 

George, Princess, 65. 

George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd, 2, 5, 
13, 19, 23, 34, 47, 56, 57, 61, 64, 66, 
69, 70, 72, 80, 82, 152, 168, 180, 183, 
191, 205, 207, 210, 212, 213, 215, 216, 
220, 283, 289, 337, 338, 391, 394, 
433. 

Georgi, Capt. W. H., 225-29. 

Geraud, M. Andr6 (" Pertinax ") , 421, 
422, 437. 

Gevers, Baroness, 269. 

Ghazi, Oaman, 355. 

Ghika, Prince and Princesa Grigorie, 
190, 335, 

Giolitti, Signor, 2, 7, 16, 60, 284. 

Giro, M. and Mme., 45. 

Goethe, J. W. von, 243. 

Goga, M., 318, 319. , 



Goode„Sir, William,' 151, 152, 172-74, 

289, 295. 1 
Goodwin, Mr, Elliot, 401, 416, 423, 

424, 450. 
Gorski, General, 328-30. 
Gorton, Brigadier-General, 155, 156, 

157, 164. 
Gorz, Kari, 102. 
Gosling, Mr., 243-45, 247. 
Gounaris, M., 23, 26, 28, 29, 33, 34, 47, 

50, 51. 
Gouvelis, General, 28. 
Gramat, General, 43-45. 
Granville, Eari, 19, 22, 24, 25, 35, 36, 

37, 47, 48, 50. 
Gratz, Dr., 115, 139, 156. 
Gray, Major Robin, 91, 93-96, 101. 
Grayson, Admiral, 450. 
Greenslet, Mr. Ferris, 404, 406, 465. 
Grey, Viscount, 177. 
Grozkofif, M., 312, 341, 358, 359, 362, 

368, 379, 383. 
Gruitch, M., 453. 
Gruitch, Mme., 453. 
Griinberger, Dr., 140. 
Griinberger, Mme., 291. 
Gueshoff, Dr., 378-80. 
Guest, Mr. S., 331, 334, 335, 339, 344, 

345, 389. 
Gunther, Mr. F. M., 19, 20, 
Gutenberg, Johannes, 220. 

Haguenin, M., 275, 276. 

Hals, Franz, 186. 

Hambelton, Captain, 397. 

Hamilton, Betty, 399. 

Hamilton, Mr. I. G., 422, 428. 

Hanbury- Williams, Mr. C., 3. 

Hara, Premier, 409, 424. 

Harbord, Maj.-Gen. James G., 417, 

418. 
Harcourt, Lady, 193, 423. 
Harding, President, 176, 178, 398, 407, 

411, 412, 413, 418, 429, 431, 444, 456, 

458, 461, 463. 
Hardinge of Penshurst, Rt. Hon. Lord, 

61, 70, 75, 76, 81, 177, 283, 391, 392. 
Harington, Maj.-Gen. Sir Charles, 27, 

31, 40, 141, 177, 284. 
Harmsworth, Mr., 252. 
Harriman, Mrs. E. H., 436. 
Harvey, Hon. George, 232. 
Hawes, Colonel, 68. 
Hawes, Lady Millicent, 68. 
Hawker, Colonel, 95, 96, 101. 
Hay, Secretary John, 420. 
Hayashi, Baron, 409. 
Hegedus, Herr, 168-70, 174, 270, 
Heinisch, Dr., 140, 145, 146. 
Heitzes, Baron, 133. 



474 



INDEX 



H6Ifene, Princess, of Greece, 30. 

Heneker, General, 256, 258, 267. 

Herbette, M., 73, 74. 

Hergault, General, 194, 195. 

Herodotus, 28, 64. 

Herrick, Ambassador Myron T., 429. 

Hertz, Dr. Friedrich, 143, 144, 286, 

291-93. 
Higgins, Mr. Rupert, 391, 461. 
Hinckley, Miss Gladys, 453. 
Hinckley, Mrs. Robert, 453. 
Hindenburg, Generalfeldmarschall von, 

90. 
Hines, Mr. Walker D., 172-74. 
Hoefer, General, 256, 257, 267, 282. 
Hohler, Mr., 154, 165. 
Holmes, Admiral Sir Robert, 404. 
Hoover, Hon. Herbert C., 416. 
Horthy, Admiral, 158, 166, 288. 
Hotzendorff, Conrad von, 135. 
House, Colonel E. M., 138. 
Hughes, Secretary C. E., 407, 413, 415, 

418-20, 431-34, 439, 441, 443, 444, 

446, 448, 450, 456, 458, 459, 461, 463, 

465. 
Humphreys, Mr., 155. 
Husak, General, 124, 125, 133. 
Hutton-Watson, Mr., 87. 

Iliesco, General, 316. 
Imperiali, Marquis, 17. 

Jacovaky, M. Alexandre N., 301, 305, 

306. 
Jaequemyns, M. Rolin, 180, 225, 231, 

233. 
James, Mr., 450. 

Jay, Mr. Peter A., 300, 301, 348, 349. 
Joanidis, Colonel, 376. 
Joffre, Marshal, 334. 
Jon, M. Grigori, 306, 319, 320. 
Jonescu, M. Take, 297-99, 331, 335-38, 

340. 
Jonescu, Mme. Take, 335. 
Joostens, Lieutenant-General, 192. 
Jordan, Sir John, 422, 462. 
Joseph, Archduke, 157, 158. 
Jurjewicz, M. Paul de, 325. 
Jusserand, M. J. J., 420, 431, 443. 
Jusserand, Mme., 454. 

Kahn, Mr. Otto H., 186, 411, 412, 457, 

460, 461, 465. 
Kahr, Dr. von, 198. 
Kaiser Wilhelm II, H.I.M., 26, 103. 
Karl, Ex-Kaiser, 119, 125, 135, 136, 

137, 139, 157, 158, 304, 402. 
Karolyi, Count, 166. 
Kato, Admiral, 409, 410, 414, 436, 438, 
;^ 441, 442, 450, 463. 



Kaulbars, General, 358. * 

Kautsky, Herr Karl, 106 «. 

Keep, Mrs., 462. 

Kelly, Admiral Howard, 22, 25, 27, 32, 

50. 
Kemal, Mustapha, 5, 15, 24, 25, 30, 41, 

44, 49, 57, 141, 330, 343, 359, 372, 

385, 386, 390, 427. 
Keyser, Mr., 331, 334. 
Kilmarnock, Lord, 88-90, 278. 
Kilmarnock, Lady, 196, 257, 278. 
King, H.M. the, 430 n. 
King of Roumania, 302-05, 333, 336. 
King, Mr. and Mrs. (Athens), 43. 
Kinsky, Count, 127. 
Kissimoff, M. Boris P., 356, 358, 360- 

63, 372, 387, 390. 
Kitchener, Lord, 429. 
Korfanty, M., 96, 232, 268. 
Kovacs, Herr, 164. 
Kovalik, M., 116. 
Krammarsch, M., 118, 119, 130. 
Kun, Bela, 157, 163-66, 341. 

Labouchere, Henry, 162. 

Ladmirault, M., 73, 193, 194. 

Lahovary, Mme., 326, 327. 

Lampson, Mr., 462. 

Lansing, Hon. Robert, 416. 

Lassiter, Brig.-Gen., 416. 

Lassiter, Mr., 239, 240. 

Lauzanne, M. St^phane, 450, 453. 

Law, Admiral, 437. 

Lebert, Colonel, 351, 388. 

Ledebur, Count, 127. 

Lee, Lord, 428, 469. 

Lee, Gen. Robert E., 426. 

Lefevre, M. Andr6, 78-80, 82, 85. 

Legros, Colonel, 211. 

Lehar, Colonel, 125. 

Lenbach, Franz von, 242. 

Lenin, Nikolai, 190, 268, 310, 358. 

Le Rond, General, 81, 91-93, 97, 98, 

181, 198, 250, 256, 267, 282. 
Lewis, Mr. W. H., 422. 
Lippovitch, Yakovlaff, 341, 365. 
Little, Captain, 442. 
Livingstone, Dame Adelaide, 266, 267, 

269. 
Loch, Maj.-Gen. Lord, 70, 176. 
Lock, Captain and Mrs., 68. 
Lockhart, Mr., 118, 119, 126. 
Lodge, Hon. Henry Cabot, 407. 
Longstreet, Colonel, 87. 
Louis, Prince, Marquess of Milford 

Haven, 1. 
Low, Mr. Maurice, 421, 422, 428, 448, 

462. 
Ludendorff, General, 90, 263. 
Lupcheff, M., 373.^ 



INDEX 



475 



Lyons, Major, 153. 

Macartney, Mr., 132, 133. 

McClure, Mr., 58, 59. 

Macduff, Captain, 83. 

McKenna, Mr., 411. 

McVey, Major, 95. 

Majaroff, Dr., 378-80. 

Malagodi, Dr., 7, 9, 10, 16. 

Malcolm, Mr. Ian Z., 1, 78. 

Manuel, H. M. King, 391. 

Mars, Captain, K. M., 54. 

Martino, Signor de, 17. 

Masaryk, President, 108. 

Masirevitch, Dr., 288. 

Masterman, General, 83, 212. 

Mataja, Dr., 140. 

Mavrocordat, Mme., 335. 

Maximos, M., 27, 34-36, 47. 

Mayes, Colonel, 24, 25. 

Mayr, Dr., 140, 145-47. 

Meda, M., 2. 

Melas, M., 48. 

Mensdorff, Count Albert, 133-35, 150, 

151. 
Mercati, Count, 21, 38, 47, 50. 
Merton, Herr Richard, 240, 241, 260. 
Metaxas, M., 17, 19, 29, 58, 60-63, 

141. 
Metaya, Herr, 148. 
Metcalfe. Mr. E. J., 401. 
Meyer, Herr, 236-38. 
Meynell, Mr. William, 354. 
Michel, General, 199, 204, 206, 207. 
Michelier, Lieutenant, 273. 
Michiels, M., 126. 
Miller, Mr. Adolph, 457, 460. 
Millerand, M., 73, 82, 205. 
Millet, M. Philippe, 193, 419-22. 
Milner, Viscount, 3. 
Minot, Mrs. Grafton, 437, 452. 
Misu, M. Nicolas, 305. 
Mittelhauser, General, 124, 125, 133. 
Moltke, Count von, 337. 
Moltke, General, 337. 
Montagna, M., 46, 47, 50. 
Morgan, Brig.-Gen. J, H., 277, 278. 
Morland, Lieut.-Gen. Sir Thomas, 85, 

87, 229, 230. 
Miinster, Princess, 102. 
Murat, Princess Eugene, 193. 
Mussen, Dr., 397. 

Nairne, Colonel, 31, 32, 43, 47. 

Nash. Mr. F. A., 401. 

Neditch, Colonel, 375, 377, 378, 386. 

Nedkov, M., 311-15, 

Nevinson, Mr. H. W., 422. 

Nicholas, Prince, 22-24, 30, 33, 37, 39. 

Nicholas, Princess, 22. 



Nicholas, H.I.H. the Grand Duke, 90. 
Nikolaieflf, M., 313, 330, 358, 368, 379. 
Nikoleanu, General, 325. 
Nitti, Signor Francesco, 7, 13, 60. 
NoUet, General, 9, 83-85, 202, 209, 212, 

215, 273-75, 281, 282. 
North, Colonel, 390, 391. 
Noyes, Mr. Pierpont, 217. 

Orlando, Signor, 5. 

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. G. A., 252. 

Oulahan, Mr. R. V., 417, 425. 

Pachitch, M., 307. 

Page, Ambassador Walter H., 429, 

Painleve, M., 82. 

Palada, Col. Dimitrie, 328. 

Pallavicini, Count, 162, 163. 

Pallis, Colonel, 40, 41. 47, 50. 

Palliser, M., 179. 

Palmer, Mr. Edward, 397. 

Palmerston, Lord, 129. 

Panourias, M., 364. 375-78, 383, 390. 

Parlow, Miss Kathleen, 402, 403. 

Patriarch of Athens, the, 21, 22. 

Paul, Prince, of Greece, 50. 

Pavlovich, M., 307. 

Peel, Sir Arthur, 337, 342, 363, 366, 

366, 378-81, 383. 
Pell6, General, 13. 
Pennoya, Mr., 279, 280. 
Percival, Colonel, 91, 92, 101. 
Pernot, M. Maurice, 2, 3, 56. 
Peroutka, Dr., 124. 
Pershing. Gen. John J., 427. 
P^tain, Marshal, 62. 63, 70, 73, 81-83; 

178, 181, 182, 188, 213. 
P6tain, Mme., 83. 
Peterson, Mr., 414. 
Philippi. Commandant. 217, 218. 
Picot, M., 342. 363, 365, 381, 388. 
Piggott, Mr. Julian, 85-87, 234. 
Piper, Major, 101, 102, 104. 
Pissaroff, Lieutenant, 341. 
Pitner, Baron, 135-38, 148. 
Plener, Baron, 151. 
Plugge, Captain, 83. 
Plunkett, Colonel, 342. 
Poillon, Lieut.-Col. Arthur, 300, 301. 
Poincar6, M. Raymond, 282, 389. 
Politis. M., 49. 
Prodkin, M., 365. ^ 

Pulitzer, Mr. Walter, 430. 

Quarry, Major F. J., 225. 

Raditch, Dr., 291, 385-87. 
Radoslavofif. M., 313. 
Radziwill. Princess, 55, 56. 
Rakovitch, M., 341, / 



476 



INDEX 



Rangabg, Colonel, 23, 2Q, 31, 38, 45, 

48, 51. 
Rangab6, M., 17, 45. 
Rapaics, Captain, 162. 
Rascano, General, 331, 332, 337, 338, 

340. 
Rathenau, Herr, 280. 
Rawlings, Mr., 42, 48. 
Rea, Mrs., 462. 
Rediadis, M., 31. 
Reshad Pasha, 363. 
Rhallys, M., 23, 26, 28-31, 33, 36, 37, 

39, 47, 49, 58. 
Rhodes, Cecil, 214. 
Ricci, Signer, 452. 

Riddell, Lord, 437, 440, 451, 454, 461. 
Robertson, Mr. Arnold, 178, 180, 181, 

224, 225, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 391. 
Robertson, Sir William, 316. 
Robinson, Mr., 164. 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 416. 
Root, Hon. Elihu, 407. 418, 454, 455, 

460. 
Rose, Mme., 458. 
Rosen, Dr., 280-83. 
Rosner, Herr, 261. 
Rothschild, Baron Maurice de, 72, 
Rupprecht, Prince, of Bavaria, 103, 

304. 
Ruspoli, Prince, 56. 
Ryan, Colonel, 225. 

Salis, Count de, 57. 

San Faustino, Princess Jane di, 56. 

San Martino, Colonel, 50. 

Sapieha, M., 338. 

Sauerwein, Herr, 194, 195. 

Scaletti, M., 56. 

Schallenberger, Colonel, 43. 

Schanzer, Signor, 438, 450, 453. 457, 

458, 464, 465. 
Schober, Police President, 143, 144, 

151, 172, 173, 286, 288-91. 
Schiiller, Dr., 138, 145, 147. 
Schuloff, Dr., 402, 403. 
Schumann-Heink, Mme., 402, 403. 
Schwartzenberg, Prince, 120, 121. 
Sedgwick, Mr. EUery, 405, 451. 
Seidel, Dr., 140. 
Sermoneta, Duchess of, 55. 56. 
Sfikas, Dr., 33. 
Sforza, Count, 2. 5, 14-17, 38, 39. 55- 

59, 66, 152, 252, 284, 443. 
Sheridan, Gen. W. T., 425. 
Sieyes, Abb6, 76. 
Simon, General, 195. 
Simonds, Mr. Frank H., 418, 419. 421. 

423. 435, 439, 458, 461, 464. 
Simons, Dr. von, 70, 81, 85, 89, 191, 

192. 



Sims, Admiral, 406. 

Smith, Mr., 110, 111. 

Snowden, Mrs. Philip, 291. 

SobolefiF, General, 358. 

Sophie, H.M. Queen of the Hellenes,^ 

20, 38, 50. 
Spencer, Mr. Charles, 350, 351. 
Spender, Mr. J. A., 422, 439, 454. 
Spiral, Colonel, 216. 
Spitzmiiller, Herr, 151. 
Spring-Rice, Rt. Hon. Sir Cecil A.; 

178, 189, 190. 
Squier, Maj.-Gen. George O., 413. 415. 

416, 428. 429. 
Stainov, M. Petco, 381-83. 
Stamboulisky, M., 298, 304, 306, 307, 

313, 341-43, 355-63. 372. 379, 382, 

383, 385. 
Standoff, M., 305, 314. 
Stancioff, Mile.. 305, 307, 
Stead, Col. Alfred, 156, 171, 
Steed, Mr. H. Wickham. 422, 428. 458. 
Sterghiadis, M., 61. 
Stevenson, Major, 96. 
Stinnes, Herr Hugo, 137, 196, 214. 218, 

230, 259, 260. 270. 
Stone, Colonel, U.S.A., 225. 
Stratos, M., 33, 34, 47. 
Strauss, M., 351, 388. 
Strauss, Dr. Richard, 402, 403. 
Stresemann, Dr., 270. 
Stuart, Sir Harold, 258. 267, 282. 
Sullivan, Mr. Mark, 457. 
Sullivan. Mrs. Mark. 444. 

Tack, Conrad, 204. 

Taft, Hon. W. H., 424. 

Tanaka, General, 436. 

Teleki, Count, 115. 

Teniers, M., 27, 43. 

Tennant, Mr., 457. 

Terbutt, Colonel, 388. 

Ter Meulen, M., 461. 

Tetbury, Colonel, 95. 

Thelwall, Colonel, 278. 

Tidbury, Mr., 101. 

Tirand, M.. 180, 217, 225, 230, 239. 

Tirpitz, General, 263. 

Tisza, Herr, 150. 

Tokugawa, Prince, 409. 

Tomski, Boris, 365. 

Townsend, Mrs. Lawrence, 444, 445. 

Townshend, Lady, 75, 78, 192. 

Trandafirisco, M., 364. 

Trevor, Lady Juliet, 178, 193, 

Trotsky, Leon, 190, 310, 358. 

Troughton, Capt. E. R., 225, 226, 230. 

Tsar of Russia. H. I. M. Nicholas II, 

3, 4, 17. 
Tschirschky, M., 134. 



W 86 



INDEX 



477 



Turner, Captain, 95. 

Underwood, Hon. Oscar W., 407, 448. 

Vafeas, Commandant, 376. 

Valiano, General, 328. 

Van Anda, Mr., 405, 406. 

Van Karnebeek, Jonkheer, 451, 460, 

461. 
Venizelos, M., 1, 4, 5, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 

33-35, 38, 43, 46, 48, 51, 61, 63-65. 
Vissering, M., 461. 
Viviani, M., 421, 452, 453, 458. 
Vlachopoulos, General, 27, 28. 
Vladimir, Grand Duke, 22. 
Vlasto, M., 29, 391. 
Voleinsk, Moes, 365. 
Von DewaU. Herr, 243, 245-47. 
Von Seekt, General, 266, 267. 

Wace, Mr. (Athens), 47. 
Waldeck-Rousseau, M., 82. 
Waldemar, Prince of Denmark, 65. 
Waldstein, Count, 108. 
Wallace, Hon. Hugh C, 416. 
Wallenstein, Duke, 109. 
Washburn, Mr. Stanley, 448. 
Washington, George, 426. 
Wauchope, Colonel, 85, 93, 94, 96. 
Weeks, Hon. John W., 416. 
Weil, Commandant, 76. 
Weir, Mr. P., 422. 



Wells, Mr. H. G.; 396, 397, 401, 402, 

403, 404, 422, 428, 462, 464. 
West, Mrs. Frank, 448, 451, 457, 462. 
White, Sir William, 42. 
Whitehouse, Major Henry, 401. 
Wiborg, Mr., 430. 
Wiborg, Miss Mary, 430, 437. 
Wilcox, Mr., 258, 260. 
WUe, Mr., 456. 
Willert, Sir Arthur, 437, 457. 
Williams, Mr. F. D., 422. 
Wilson, Sir Charles Stewart, 356, 362, 

387. 
WUson, Mr. H. P., 428. 
Wilson, Mr. P. W., 422, 430. 
Wilson, Ex-President Woodrow, 415, 

416, 419. 
Wilson, Mr., 110, 111. 
Wincer, Mr., 353, 354. 
Windischgratz, Prince, 162, 163. 
Wirth, Chancellor, 247, 259, 262, 266, 

269-73, 276, 280. 
Wrangel, General, 366, 383. 
Wright, Mr. Butler, 397, 399, 450. 
Wright, Mrs. Hamilton, 448. 

Yencken, Mr. Arthur, 445, 459. 
Yokota, Mr., 464. 

Zaharoff, Sir Basil, 183-86. 
Zamoyski, Count, 190. 

























'oK 





': %.** '^&: \/ .'Jife-' ^*^.** viS^^"« ''-- 


















^^O* '^ 




•"^.•I-^Cj* 









»^ •^l:,^'* 







4" 



o « o » -^^ 













^- "•• >^---.>o;*"\^*^' 



-o^^^f^^o^ V^^\/ "<v*^'^*/ V^ 



^^-^K 













.ft^ -•■•* *rt 



.«> "<>^ 



J' 



C^ ,.o« 



